kinkyMaL, where maloki and Loa occasionally talk about games

After the strangest night the sun will still rise, Minecraft day 3

I didn’t think I’d get around to playing yesterday, especially after taking so long to write yesterday’s post (I’m going through some medication issues, and it’s really screwed with my concentration levels this week). At some point I had decided to not play, I had logged in to take some of the screenshot for yesterday’s post, but decided to call it a night, but I found myself staying up for another reason.

After being up and it was 1-2 AM, and yesterday’s adventure was published, I eventually felt like I could play, and that I could allow myself to stay up all night (make a conscious decision to do so). I had the goal to stay up until a possible delivery, but that delivery never happened and I had a glorious sleep on the sofa instead. But, enough about my real life, let’s talk about my Minecraft night.

Into the night

I logged in with one goal, and that was to gather materials to be able to rebuild the house if I had energy. I felt like we needed an expansion to be able to add more organized storage and such. And I also wanted to replace the dirt built bridges.

However, I quickly found myself just gathering wood, for hours, and just letting myself walk around mindlessly, stay out in the rainy night, the rain sounds in the game were so soothing, and I just kind of got lost in it.

First person view in Minecraft, me holding an axe, and looking at trees through the dark rain of the night. — Dark rain over the forest with faint lights on the side of the screen

I feared no foe, and just got my shit done. I couldn’t really stop chopping down trees. I started by clearing the area around my vegetable garden.

View over the vegetable garden in the rain, a dirt path trails off the screen. The torches around the garden lights up the vegetable patches in a beautiful way contrasting the rain and darkness. — My vegetable garden as a light of hope in the rainy night

I really should be more patient with taking my screenshots, so it doesn’t still say “saved screenshot” in the next screenshot. Practice, patience. We’ll get there.

As you can see I have a mini-map, and I would only turn it on occasionally, but I found it incredibly helpful during the nights when I’d otherwise be worried about monsters killing me. I found myself incredibly brave just being out here doing my thing, and dealing with them as they came up. I’m slowly learning how different monsters behave in the night, but also meeting new ones and learning things from those encounters. Not that I fully understand them all yet.

View over the fields below a hill, the vegetable garden on the left edge of the screen, and big fields on the rest of it, a lot of small saplings planted as part of sustainable farming — A nights work

Viewing my work was very fascinating, especially after a little bit of time passed, and suddenly trees had sporadically grown, as below.

View over the field with saplings, now some have grown a little. varying heights of the trees. — Some are really tall, some are more like bushes

Looking up at the canopy of a big tree, that grew a lot taller than the other ones around it. — Beautiful tall trees

While climbing the mountains I also made new friends, namely another chicken, and even though I have a pasture filled with chickens, I just can’t resist bringing more home from far away.

A white chicken at the top of a tree, I'm fairly close to it with seeds in my hand- — Chickns appear in the strangest of places.

The chicken, following me with seeds in my hand, over the little dirt bridge I built next to my vegetable garden — Come on buddy you can cross the little bridge.

My chicken pasture filled with both grown chickens and baby chicks. — All the chickens

While I was climbing one of the mountains I cleared my inventory by throwing out the eggs, and chickens appeared. I threw some of them in some weird places, so they ended up outside of the pasture and I had to collect them back in. They are so smol and cute tho.

A tiny chicken next to the water outside of the gate to the pasture looking up at me expectantly of the seeds in my hand. — im smol

Dangers in the night

I went to chop down the sugarcane close to the dungeon house, and two tiny zombies ran up to me and attack me. I was so perplexed because I’d not seen tiny zombies before. Before I knew it I was dead.

Death screen in Minecraft. Screen is shaded red, and the text says "You died! kinkymal was slain by Zombie".

However, it was kind of entertaining, because seeing my corpse was neat, which has a new skin, even though it’s covered in armor. And I can show you how it works (this will be relevant later).

A corpse with brown hair, white-ish armor (iron) and a sword standing right up. It's me, I'm the corpse, I'm looking at my own self. — She’s dead alright.

Dark night, with a small zombie child between myself and my corpse. Next to the fence for the chicken pasture, lit up with torches. — I’ve never been so afraid of a small child

Continued story with the zombie child, you can now see the head of it right upon me, but at waist height. — I’m being attacked!

I think the scariest part of them was that it felt like they came out of nowhere, and just ran at me. The zombies do tend to walk towards you from a lot further range, so yeah that was definitely part of the nights experience, figuring out how the different monsters act towards me, and what range is safe for me.

Further away from light, darkness enveloping the world, and me standing straight up against an Enderman, the Enderman is tall and slender, pitch black, with pink sparkles floating in the air around it as a kind of aura. — Friendly? Friendly!

I knew that you wouldn’t hurt me, Mr Enderman, unless I hurt you first. So I allowed myself to walk up fairly close to have a look at you.

Something I didn’t manage to get screenshots of was the Pillagers that kept coming up to me, but you can see the “debuff” at the upper left corner of the screenshots. And lucky me they dropped a crossbow that I could use in my adventures.

Aiming a cocked crossbow towards a skeleton in the distance. — I got you in my sights

Cave Diving

Oh boy, I decided to go back into the caves, because I had completely forgot why I was cutting so much wood. And realized I was starting to run low on Iron.

Viewing down the staircase to the caves for mining. Pool of water at the bottom that you can jump into to make traveling down faster. — Time to go cave diving.

I feel like it’s worth mentioning, I was incredibly tired during this session, and spending the night awake while I needed sleep, because my brain was being silly, so I did die a lot more than I’d say I usually do.

I don’t remember why this skeleton killed me, but ack, here we are. And well I did get my stuff back from this because it was fairly easy, more interesting issues arose later in the morning.

Death screen in Minecraft. Screen is shaded red, and the text says "You died! kinkymal was shot by Skeleton". — “Shot by Skeleton”

Inventory screen, with a preview of my character, still wearing my armor, but covered in 10 arrows. — Yep, I was definitely shot by a skeleton

Gorgeous view of the big cave I found. I wanted to take my time to go explore it, but maybe not quite yet, I still needed more iron. And I was carrying a fair amount at this point.

View of a big cave, in the foreground you see greenery growing and hanging down from the ceiling, and in the background you see a lava waterfall and some hints of water around it. — There are some very gorgeous sights in Minecraft.

Unfortunately one wrong step, can mean falling to your death. I didn’t do anything in particular, I just managed to find the one block that would let me fall all the way down. form -18 to -50. Suffice to say, I died.

Death screen in Minecraft. Screen is shaded red, and the text says "You died! kinkymal fell from a high place". — Whoops, I tripped

I did laugh at myself after falling down, and continued listening to the zombie groaning next to me. And I was like, well I’m sure I can find a way back down here and retrieve my corpse.

Which took me on a new adventure.

Corpse Hunting

Diving back in, with some spare iron tools, and blocks no armor but some food, I was confident I could get back my corpses.

Looking down the stairs I built leading back into the green cave. — Could I find my way back?

Inventory screen, with 3 arrows sticking out of my body. — No armor, no weapons, no tools.

I encountered another set of skeletons, this time it was a monster spawner in an inconvenient place, and I was already down on my luck, so I had to go fetch that corpse too (sorry no death screen). And I did find my corpse, I guess I’d been running and jumping around while getting killed. Because my corpse was not where I expected it to be.

My corpse (without armor) high up among the greenery growing from the ceiling. — My corpse was a lot higher than I expected

This wasn’t the corpse from the fall. But one in between. I managed to build my way up to it and fetch my items from it.

A closer shot of my corpse floating in the air as I'd managed to make my way up to it so I could loot it. — closer up to my floating body

Unfortunately, I was so stuck in trying to figure out hwo to find my corpse, I didn’t actually take many more screenshots this night, because there was a struggle to find it. And in actuality I couldn’t find the corpse, and didn’t take a screenshot of me being in the correct location.

Player Death History screen (mod), showing the dimension and location of my corpse where all my loot is stored post death. — Double checking the coordinates of the corpse I’m really trying to get to

But I did solve the problem creatively after a while of searching. And by the help of some useful tips and tricks I figured out how to go into creative mode, because the mod allows to retrieve your items in creative mode, if you can’t find the corpse (or whatever reason you want to use).

And I felt like because I’d been able to get to the position where it should be, I was okay with getting my stuff back, even if the mod broke for the purpose at that point and I had to find another solution. I did also research the mods FAQ and site etc, to figure out if there was something I was missing, and there was no helpful solutions other than this to be honest.

As I finished off my cave adventures in the early morning, I decided it was time to go to sleep instead of trying to do more stuff in the game when I was too tired to play. And take a bit of a break.

See you in the next post/episode! (I finally remembered what I wanted all the wood for, so probably doing that next time!)

If you’re enjoying reading these little articles or stories, consider throwing some support my way: via ko-fi or alternatives. I’m currently trying to cover my student loan debt payments and that will be my goal going forward too.

Sharing my world in Minecraft, Day 2

At the end of yesterday’s post I promised a house tour, when I realized I didn’t have any pictures of the house and my little patch I call home. I also realized when I was adding these images of the house to this post that well, a lot changed in yesterday’s session and I don’t think I captured any more images of that, so you’ll have to come back tomorrow for yet another update!

Okay lets get started.

House Tour

I have built a small house with space for bed, and a crafting corner and some storage. And while there’s a garden with a fence, the chicken kept coming inside because I forget I can take seeds out of my hands.

Feed the chickens seeds and they’ll follow you OUT of the house.

As you can see my hotbar is full of seeds. And I was very confused about where my gear was, and it turns out it was lost in the caves because I had logged off after a death. This modpack has a corpse/death mod that stores all your stuff in a corpse. Which means it’s easy to go fetch it all again, if you can get past whatever killed you.

Front garden with a sheep hiding behind a bush.

One lonely sheep and one chicken in my front pasture/garden

My one sheep and chicken in the pasture at the front of my house. I kept feeding them because I didn’t know if they need food or not. But I guess it does make me feel connected with them.

And here’s my little garden! It looks very different now, see the photo below. I had learnt from Mr Streamer (who in turn learnt from the comment section) that planting different plants next to each other is more efficient than the same. I don’t know if there’s any merit to this, but it seems to be working fairly well, and I also don’t know if it’s related to a mod in the modpack or not (and it turned out we’re running different versions of the modpack so it contains different mods). So that’s what I’ve been trying to do, while also getting variety.

At this point I haven’t had enough iron to make a bucket, to get more water in this trench I dug, so that was a project I set out to get going with for the day. Loa tried to help explain to me how to fix my water issue, by creating infinite water sources, but he ended up being like “let me just do it myself”, because I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say, whoops.

Mining adventures

I went out to fetch my items from my body, and get going with the day.

On the way I discovered greenery, while also being distracted by gems.

Very very deep cave. Looking down from a height

Turns out I found a bigger cave, filled with Lava. I did not venture further, because something was waiting for me at the surface, and I had fetched what I came back for.

A new Visitor

Who’s that?

Loa joined my game before heading to work! And there was quick some adventures afoot.

Skeletons chilling outside under the tree canopies

There’s a lot of moments where I’m like “Loa did you know?” about Minecraft, and I got a feeling it’s like experiencing a 5yr-old playing the game and explaining something you already know. And I love getting to be that person right now. Did you know that skeletons hide under the trees to not get burnt in the daylight? I find it fascinating. and yes my hotbar is empty because I died again. RIP.

Free Range Farming

Once he joined, Loa quickly taught me that if you feed two animals you breed them, and I was like “Oh I thought the heart meant they loved ME and wanted to be with ME, not fuck each other smh.”

I found a black and a white sheep, and I fed them both seeds

We went out and found some more animals for our farm. I found a black and a white sheep, and I used the trick Loa had just taught me, and I got a baby sheep that was grey! And I was so happy. Once I got back home I immediately cleared out the other sheep, that I had before and that Loa had brought back too, which gave us extra wool and food. But I didn’t want more than these 3. For now.

Loa quickly started building a bigger farm, for wheat, so we could have a good supply of food, but he was confused by all the million extra types of seeds and stuff I had, which is part of the modpack.

He also started some small projects and installed his own bed in, now, our house.

At one point I noticed that he was building something strange, a little bit away from the house, and he was like “this is a great way to farm eggs”, and I was like you’re not putting my chicken in a box, we free range our eggs in this house! He didn’t heed me warning though.

I caught him coaxing a chicken out of our garden and over the little bridge (from which I take the vegetable garden photo) to this big box, and up the stairs on the side. And he was like “push it in”, and I did because I was curious how it worked mechanically. However moments after the chicken fell in so did I, and that reminded me that I was not okay with this. So I started mining it down and chopping down any wood pieces and the box, reiterating that “we free range our chicken here.”

I started digging out the back of the house a bit later, to make it flat, so I could put a big pasture out there.

Big field with a fence on the right side, and a hill on the left side. Dirt patches where I’d leveled out the terrain.

Pasture filled with chickens, and torches everywhere.

I think it turned out pretty nice.

Distractions, Minecraft with ADHD:

I think while Loa was in the game with me, I didn’t take nearly as many screenshots. So let me tell you some stories instead.

I believe I was struggling to leave the cave system, because I kept dying and not finding my corpse after I did. So I was running around trying to find it, and we went back in together, no pictures of us both in the caves unfortunately. He taught me a neat trick of just blocking a passage that leads to a dead-end to make it slightly easier to find your way back in, or out for that matter.

The entrance to the cave system I’ve built a tower out of, with a stair down, and I showed him how you could just jump down because there’s water at the bottom, unfortunately my pictures of it aren’t very good.

A cobblestone hovel, with a stair peaking out.

A spiral staircase with actual stairs, so you can run up and not needing to jump.

The angle of the second image isn’t perfect, you can’t actually see the water at the bottom because of how the stair spiral. And the front of the building is a bit messed up, but will have a door later. I was adding in the stairs today as part of making the cave system more accessible. And making it easier to find your way out. But basically, you run and jump down, and land in a puddle of water that’s 2 by 2 blocks to give you some space. And it makes it really fast to go down, and the stairs make it fairly fast to run back up too.

We did spend some time running around doing random things yesterday, but occasionally in the mines we lost each other and I lost myself (my body) that I needed to get back to. Every time after I would find myself again, I’d also get lost. So I started carving out some nice paths, that are clear on where to go. Or at least if you follow it in one direction you’ll make your way back or forward.

And one of those paths, made out of wood, leads to this mining basecamp.

Wooden path, with a chest on the side with a sign, and another sign and two beds in the background

A sign saying “Mining operations” above a chest

I felt like it could be good to have a home away from home, with some extra material you can’t carry on your own etc. and a bed if you want to change your spawn point temporarily. There’s materials to make new tools (still on iron), and some food too. And ofc a lot of wood to keep making these nice paths.

From here I kept puttering around, just filing down corners, putting up more torches, and helping myself make sense of the paths going further down into the cave system, and I cut off some dead ends with a clear indication that not to venture forward.

In closing

Here’s how the garden looked by the end of the session:

A fair amount of plants are newly planted here, because I had just harvested it. I’m loving how it’s developing, and how we’re being rewarded by variety.

My very first experience with Minecraft, day 1

I don’t know how many parts of this I’ll be writing, but I started playing Minecraft, for the very first time, yesterday. And I got feelings.

We could talk about why I never tried it until now, but let’s just summarize it as “I was stubborn”, and it’s a familiar trait with me for people who know me.

What made me want to try it all of a sudden? I think it was a combination of things.

I got the time to ease into the idea of playing it, by outside influences. For the most part in the past when I’d seen Minecraft videos it would be from already established players (with the 5yr old exceptions), and I never got to see that early player experience. And that put me off. It often felt like you needed to know how to play the game in order to play it.

The influences around me that eased me into it were mainly two. Mr Samuel Streamer on YouTube playing the Better Minecraft modpack on his secondary channel. And ExcessiveProfanity talking about playing it with his young son. I had heard them talked about it in the past, but I think combined with Mr Streamer playing it and me enjoying watching that series, it just started to click for me.

Loa has been playing Minecraft since long before we met, and he had invited me to play with him a few times, it just never felt right though. I tried to not be too dismissive about it, but each time I basically landed on “I don’t feel it”. But the past few days it started to bubble up inside of me. So while Loa was asleep, I walked up to him and whispered “Do you want to play Minecraft with me?”, he was too asleep to hear me though, and maybe that was my thought too, that I didn’t want him to hear me because I was scared of the reality.

First screenshot in Minecraft — “How do I screenshot?” -F2. “Okay, thank you.”

Through the day I installed curseforge, the modpack (Better Minecraft), and the Minecraft Free Demo (as you can see in the above screenshot). There were a lot of cute moments which I wish I could’ve captured in a better way, but I also didn’t want to put a lot of my currently limited spoons to set it up. So I decided to just take screenshots instead, and tell you some small stories.

Yes, this was what I wanted to screenshot as my first screenshot. They are so cute, and it’s such a nice experience to meet them for the first time. I was basically just running around picking flowers, cutting down trees, freaking out about it being night time, and stayed in the safety of the field with the animals.

I met a very suspicious looking pig though. Turns out it was a sheep in pigs clothing. Adorable. Apparently rare?

Baby pig! I immediately ran out to get my other pig

Then, when I ran into the baby pig. And I immediately sprung out of my chair, as I’d recently been unpacking some boxes in the house, and ran into my room to fetch something. Loa was sitting next to me at the time and he was like “Do you have one?” and I was like “omg omg omg omg”, because yes, I have one, a small plushy that I actually got for him some years ago. I guess it’s both of ours now.

Classic Minecraft death: Player was blown up by Creeper

And then, a while later I had my first death, these are always important. Especially in a game like Minecraft where dying is just part of the game. And everyone’s been blown-up by a creeper once or twice. I saw it before it blew up, but I couldn’t move away fast enough and was already low on health. I’m honored that my first death was given to me by a creeper, and I’m sure there’ll be many more.

A very dark image, in a cave in Minecraft, and a lurker hiding behind a bush — Always lurking.

After this very well played trial I did buy the game. The reasons I played the trial first was that I wanted to be sure that I’d enjoy and continue to play it. And yeah I’m very happy with my first session.

The evening continued with me playing it, and not taking as many screenshots, but I’ll give you a house tour tomorrow.

The biggest jumpscare I experienced yesterday was not from any creepers or mobs. But rather, a friendly visiting caravan.

I was head down digging something and I heard their very loud sound as they showed up out of no where.

See you tomorrow for more adventures.

Allowing myself time when editing for the first time

You may have caught my sneak peek preview of me recording RimWorld, and right now I’m in the process of editing it.
The goal is to create some decent bite-size episodes of about 30min, and then share it with you all over time. I spent a whole week with every night recording, and it was kind of intense. That said, recording makes RimWorld run a lot slower, so I didn’t necessarily get very far each night.

I could see that there was an eagerness within myself to rush to get something out, but then I realize that in order for me to continue enjoying and getting back into editing I need to let myself take the time it needs.
For a few reasons:
1. I’m learning a new editing software, kdenlive. The last one I’ve been familiar with, before CapCut on the phone in recent months, was Avid about 17 years ago when I was at school studying film and editing. It’s been a while.
2. I’m getting used to the different tools available within that editing software, and have big chunks of video to log.
3. I want to just enjoy the process.

I realize that this means it’ll take y’all a bit longer to actually get something, but hopefully I can provide some sneak-peaks and some insightful texts like this in the meanwhile.

If it’s any consolation I will most likely be editing one episode at the time, and then schedule them or publish them as they are done. If I finish a lot in a short time span, I will of course try to space them out at some decent interval.

Thank you for your patience with me as I struggle with my health, and mental health levels over the past few years. I’m glad you’re here, and that we’re embarking on a new journey and chapter together!

Mini-review: Beholder

When Beholder became available to me on Twitch, a game I’ve been eyeing for a while, I didn’t have any excuses left. I had no idea what the game was about because I rarely look too deep into any game.

So I sat down with it yesterday, and quickly I started to get uneasy about it. We’re supposed to spy on the people in our building, and we’re a landlord. Just being put in the shoes of being a landlord is bad enough, adding to that with having to spy on the people, and write reports. I get it it’s dystopian, but I wasn’t sold on the narrative when I started playing.

I was very close to giving up, and calling it quits, when I realized there’s more to the narrative. And I continued playing. I’ve done 3 different runs, and the 3rd one I decided to stop. I was getting stressed by it, partially from the mechanics, and the time management. We’re able to be awake 24/7, conversations stop time, but writing your reports don’t. So occasionally you have to really stress in order to get the profile or report done at the right time.

Minor spoilers ahead.

Discovering that you can complete each “mission” in different ways is interesting though, and does allow for some replay-ability. And just realizing that we’re not only a bad person we’re just living under the circumstances that were handed to us and trying our best.

I’m still curious about some other characters, and figuring them out etc, but for now I’m going to put this game down and say I’m done with it, and I’m fine with what I experienced.

It’s possible that my current state of mindfog makes it harder to play the game, so maybe coming back to it some other time would be better. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll make a review in review series down the line.

Partnered link where you can buy this game: Beholder is currently available on Humble Bundle on sale the next 4 days and 20hrs for only €2.99!

Day 12, the Sculpture (Finale)

11th of Septober, Spring, 5510. Psychic Rain

Luxemburg’s Journal

We found Von’s Jade sculpture! That means they were here! I asked the trader about it, if he knew anything else. And he told me about how some of the people who pass through here had visited Cannon’s colony. They apparently had had a horrendous time, and weren’t going back anytime soon. Guess that means their hospitality isn’t the best.

Von’s sculpture is such a gorgeous piece called 3FS, it bears an illustration of an ellipse surrounded by rectangles. The whole image is depicted by the careful arrangement of thousands of priests. If I had enough money I would’ve bought it back, and brought as a peace offering.

Now it’s time to get to their camp, it’s not very far from here, we should reach it before the end of the day.

Cannon’s journal

Ralph has fully healed, and we’re all doing fairly well here. The animals are becoming so abundant, I’ve decided to abandon the idea of taming the warg as well, but I needed meat to tame the polar bear we saved. It didn’t seem interested in staying with us after it healed, so I let it outside, but it’s such a gorgeous animal I want to see if I can change it’s mind.

Some of the other animals are staying though, the emu, and the elephant named Samson. This is overall good.

[…]

Something I didn’t expect happened today. Luxenburg, Croiro and Speedy showed up at the camp. They weren’t hostile against us, and I was surprised that they had found us at all. Since me and Von had decided to keep communications with the old colony, it was actually quite nice to see them again. And I handed over a few doses of luciferium (as many as they wanted to carry), and they gave us some Hospital beds, and began helping around the colony and finish building a new break room.

I think this is a great start of a new colony together, if they want to stay here, I don’t know. Maybe they can help us settle in at least, and then we can decide.

This is a RimWorld character journal, mainly following a pawn by the name of Cannon and their journey as they keep a diary on the rim. This is using a modded game as a source, so some things may differentiate from the core game.

Day 11, It’s raining animals

10th of Septober, Spring, 5510. Psychic Rain

Luxemburg’s Journal

Today was the first time we got attacked by anything during our 7 day caravan. It was a measly three Scaria infected squirrels. I’m glad I didn’t try to go on this quest alone, because while three squirrels may not sound like a lot, if you’re caught alone it can be quite harmful, especially if one of your wounds get infected. We ended up with a small break after the ambush, patched Speedy up, collected some extra berries and herbal medicine.

…

At the next village we still didn’t find any luci. But we got some solid info, it was recommended that we cross through the forest along the path instead of going around the ancient asphalt road, unless we really want to visit the other villages in our hunt for luci.

As we’re running out of days I think it’s best to get to Orange Rock by following the suggested path, and hopefully it’ll bring us closer to figuring out where Cannon set up camp. I am hoping that Cannon didn’t sell all the luci immediately, but saved some of it for emergencies or got a change of heart when they realized that they’d done.

…

We made it through the forest by 20h, and the village is just north of the Rhino Chestnut Swamp, so I’m beginning to get my bearings on this side.

We’ve again been recommended to go to the next village, another of the Black Horse Maca faction’s, because according to where they saw the drop pod land its highly likely they passed by there if they were looking to sell anything.

Cannon’s Journal

While I was out deconstructing ruins for more materials, I found a polar bear. What? Similar to the other animals I’ve come across the past few days it was hurt, and these animals all seem to have crashed in cargo pods, and that often means they were domesticated by someone, so I guess they may want to start around. I hope the arctic wolf and polar bear will get along with Ralph.

Even with all the new animals I was just having a horrible day today, and began aimlessly wandering in the rain. Von calmed me down before nightfall, but I was so dazed I tried to use the telescope even though.

I apparently Von found an elephant? I hope we can feed all these animals…

Day 10, Progress

9th of Septober, Spring, 5510. Psychic Rain

Cannon’s Journal

We finished the first guest lodgings! Von helped me move some furniture, I put up some wall and roof, and it looks okay. Still need some extra floor, but at least now they can sleep in some beds.

There was a caravan visiting, and they had an arctic wolf available, and I decided to buy it instead of trying to tame a warg all on my own. I also found a hurt emu that I brought home and patched up. I guess I’m an animal collector now.

It’s still raining, and we bought a telescope, will have to wait with using it until it stops raining.

Luxenburg’s Journal

We reached the Village Rego, of the Union of Verea. They greeted us and said they’d heard about us from our neighbouring villages. They are the same faction as our second closest neighbour. They also didn’t have any luci to sell, and we added a small amount to our food rations, just in case.

According to them the drop pod from 10 days ago did not go north of them, but seemed to have landed somewhere south west of where we were right now. And if we continue following the ancient asphalt road we may be able to get more info from the next village over. Maybe the people are looking for had visited there.

The drop pod going south of them, doesn’t mean that Cannon and Von set up a settlement south of here. They could have gone anywhere from where they landed, but let’s hope they set up somewhere close to where they landed.

Day 9, All the Rain

8th of Septober, Spring, 5510. Psychic Rain

Cannon’s journal

Both me and Von were awake in the early hours of the morning, around 3-5h we found ourselves cleaning up the barracks, and Von did some cooking after slaughtering those rats I killed yesterday. The rats didn’t have Scaria fortunately, but something must’ve driven them to become manhunters nonetheless. This meant more meat for us.

The rain is still pouring down, and I’m almost convinced I’m aging faster. And being wet all the time isn’t fun. It’s definitely sapping my mood.

I’m going to spend the rest of the day today cleaning up a little bit more, and then I want to set up some guest beds for the next time we get visitors. Maybe plan out how to lay out the rest of our housing situation here.

I also want to build a little crafting room, but that will have to wait until I’m done building some of the essentials. Not like I’ll have time crafting until then anyways. So that would mean I have to build the crafting room after the comms console.

[…]

Remember the cat I saved? Jackson? He seems to have settled in and want to stay with us. At least I think so, he came back inside after having left for a few days and is now sleeping with the other animals.

I was also tempted to tame a warg today, unfortunately no luck but at the same time I’m glad I didn’t get attacked by it. Maybe I shouldn’t try again…

Luxemburg’s journal

We reached the river about 7h this morning. It looked like we could either follow it until we hit the path, or cut across a valley to further down the path, so we decided to cut across the valley. And we hit the path around 13h. Should be maybe a day or so to the next village now. Then we can begin triangulation for Cannon and Von. If we’re really lucky maybe they sold off the Jade statue, and if we can find it we’d be able to know for sure they were there.

Kingdom Classic – as a shared experience + New Lands

I picked up Kingdom Classic from Humble Bundle when it was free. Both me and Loa picked up the game, and he started playing it the night before me. We had a shared enjoyed experience of it. Which is something I’ve missed. If we weren’t playing multiplayer together, we’d occasionally find a single player game and play it at the same time. And it’s such a fabulous way to experience a game with someone.

Over the weekend we kept sending messages to each other asking if we’d experience x, or maybe y, yet, and it was such a fabulous thing to have that between us again. We’ve been apart for most of the pandemic, and he’s working so much that we haven’t really played games together.

So what about the game, I’ve always been an avid fan of strategy games, of tower defense, and just banging my head against the wall as I learn how the mechanics of a game works. This game truly had it all! It was also incredibly pretty, and relaxing in it’s own way.

While I spend two days “off” this weekend letting myself zone out from everything, especially the election news, I luckily had this game on hand. I had already been eyeing Kingdom Two Crowns for quite a while, but I’d been waiting with buying it because at the moment I’m not buying games unless I know I’m playing it pretty much immediately. My library has become unruly.

I’m going to publish some pieces behind spoilers, after this, but first I’m going to say: If you enjoy strategy and tower defense-esque games, along with some minor resource management I highly recommend this game.

Game mechanic spoilers that I think are enjoyable to experience for yourself the first time. But also me and Loa’s interactions while playing the game.

First day of playing it myself, I shot a message to Loa fairly soon asking: Have you lost your crown yet?

His response was “lololol, yeah”

It was the first thing that happened to me because I wanted to explore the map, and just didn’t know what the mechanics were like

A followup, I also acquired Kingdom: New Lands at some point via Twitch. And I set out to play it recently. Since I had managed to beat the Classic version, I was excited to try out a different way to experience this game. And oh boy did I enjoy it! Exploring in a new way, and discovering “blueprints”, which I honestly thought were map segments in order to help you travel to another region. and then having a more wider variety for how you can experience the game.

I did end up looking up some details, because I wasn’t sure how they worked, and I am kind of at the point in my life that, if I can’t figure something out and it’s just driving me up the walls I’ll look it up, it doesn’t necessarily detract from my experience. And I believe that if you feel like it would detract, you could just NOT look it up. But I do appreciate that it can be difficult to know what is “safe” to look up. Will it spoil something.

I noticed something, that you may appreciate knowing, and that’s that most of the wiki for the game, has all 3 games in the same articles, because they built on the same architecture, and do certain things differently.

End game spoiler for Kingdom: New Lands

I unlocked everything and ended up on Skull Island, which is a lot closer to how Kingdom Classic is, but bigger (I think it’s with 3 portals on each side). And you can’t access some of the really cool features of the other maps, if you want something special you have to bring it.
This for me builds up replayability. And I’ll probably keep this game installed for a long while so I can experience it over and over again.

One nitpick I have is that there doesn’t seem to be a straightforward way to reset your progress entirely, like if several people use the same computer for gaming, and sharing the library. But I’m sure there’s ways around that if I really wanted to.