Underneath my yellow skin

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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit demo, A Quick Look (part three)

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I’m back for the third and final post about the Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox) demo. I want to talk about what I liked and didn’t like in the demo. I have said that the aesthetics are not my style, but they grew on me in game one. Let me rephrase that. The environments are vivid and the bears are cute; it’s mostly the player character that leaves me feeling a bit empty. I got used to it, though, anad I loved being able to dress them up as I wished. There were so many cute outfits, and I had to buy them all.

Here’s my post from yesterday about the basics of the first game and how the demo has differed so far. In this point, I’ll talk more about that and what I hope the sequel will have. And won’t have. Oh, and I’ve included the trailer from the original game below since I’ve included the trailer for this game in the last two posts.

I left off the last post by talking about how the quests seem much easier to finish in this game than the first, at least in the demo. I have mixed feelings about that because while it was frustrating in the first game to have to wait literal days to finish quests, I’m not sure I like finishing them in a matter of minutes, either. Then again, they may just be the first steps to a bigger and longer quest. I think I would be pleased if that was the case. I think that would be a good middle ground. Have some quests that can be finished in the current session and some that might have to wait until the next day.

Actually, that might have been how it was in the first game. It’s been some time since I’ve played it, so I’m not sure. It’s weird, though, because the ones you do in the moment seem to be too easy to finish. I will say I was frustrated by one thing. There’s a way to fix the bus, and you have to find several different parts. I could not find one part for the life of me, and I realized that it’s because they did not want you to find it in the demo. Or maybe not at all beacuse once the bus is fixed, presumably it can be driven. Though how it was drivin onto an island, I am unsure.

I hope that the cast of bears I have to help will be as memorable and  endearing as they were in the first game. I’m a bit wary of the content creator bear, but I mean it is part of the current social landscape. Meaning, it’s a valid job, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t be represented in the game. And yet, I’m a bit wary because they are already doing the ‘like and subscribe’ vibe that is so off-putting to me. They, themselves, though are very sweet.

I like that in the first game and in this game so far, there are a wide variety of characters. It’s one thing I appreciate in cozy games–so many of the devs are deliberate about maknig their games inclusive. Not just racially, but sexual orientation, disabilities, gender identity, neuroatypicality, etc. Even religion has been touched upon in some games, as well as spirituality. Death is definetely dealt with, too–and in a sensitive manner.


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Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit demo: A Quick Look

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Let’s talk more about the demos I’ve played recently. Yesterday, I started talking about the Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit (Spry Fox) demo, which is the sequel to Cozy Grove. As I mentioned, it’s one of my top five non-From games of all time. I think I’d put it at three or four. (Behind Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall) and Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games) definitely. I’m not sure if I’d put it before or after Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! (Vertigo Gaming. They are essentially tied.)

The art design is not my cuppa, but it grew on me. I liked the environments for the most part and the bears–it’s just the humans that turned me off, actually. It’s a bit too cutesy for me, but I can get past that because the game is so engaging.

As I said, one of the key hooks in the first game is that it ran in real time (sort of), and you could only do a set parts of the storyline quests per day. There were always side quests you could do at any time (and they rotated, so I got pretty tired of finding six cogs buried in the leaves (made-up example, but indictative of the side quests) for one of the bears every two weeks or so).

This was one of the games that saved me after my medical crisis. I was sad that I had broken my streak of days playing the game when I had was in the hospital for two weeks, but then I picked it up again once I was able to play games again.

When I was in the hospital, one of the physical therapists told me that one way to do rehab was to play video games. My brother laughed and said that I could probably handle that. The PT said that she and her son played an hour of Breath of the Wild (Zelda) every night together.

On the fourth or fifth day I was home , I fired up Dark Souls III (FromSoft). At that time, it was my favorite game of all time. I was still wobbly, so I didn’t do any fighting. Instead, I ran around Firelike Shrine, which is the hub world in this game. It’s a reimagining of Firelinke Shrine from the OG Dark Souls, and it’s fucking gorgeous. The first time I walked into it, I had tears in my eyes. It was a sight to behold, and it warmed my heart.

The first time back after doing a respawn in real life, I had tears once again. I could not believe I was alive and running around in my favorite video game in my beloved big hat (Sage’s Big Hat). I was so overcome with emotions and grateful to be alive.


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Yes, even more about weapons

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I am going to talk more about weapons. Yesterday, I spent a huge chunk of the post talking about my stroke. There was a reason for it, and I’m going to talk a little more about it today. I was saying how since I recovered so well from my medical crisis, I sometimes forget that it actually happen. It’s because I didn’t really have to do much of anything to recover other than rest (and Taiji once I was able to do it).

I did not have to do any rehab. At all. On the second or third day that I was awake in the hospital, one of the physical therapist (PTs) who was testing my abilities told me that it took a year or two to return to what could be considered normal. Even in my drugged up state, I could tell that she was carefully picking her words and that she didn’t believe what she was saying. I didn’t say anything because as I mentioned, I  was drugged to the gills. I could talk, yes, but not well nor did I want to.

Fun fact: I had something called tickertape synesthesia in the first few days I woke up. That meant that when I was talking to someone (or rather when they were talking to me), I could see a bubble over their head that had what they were saying in fonts that related to a name my brain gave them. So, for example, there was one nurse named Leif something or the other. My brain decided his name was Forest and gave his words a leafy font. Plus, trees. And green and brown colors.

It was a really interesting experience, but I was not sad when it faded away. I did not need to be in the middle of a cartoon, and I wanted my brain to be as clear as possible.

A few months after my medical crisis, I felt nearly 100%. Physically, anyway. By that time, my parents were back in Taiwan, and I was on my own again. I considered myself fully recovered and went about my merry way.

Except.

I could not get the experience out of my mind. I’m not knocking myself for it, mind. I mean, it was literally a life-changing event. Except it wwasn’t, really. What I mean is that, ye,s in the literal sense, it changed my world. But, because I recovered so well, I didn’t feel as if something had actually happened to me. Yes, I was exteremely tired all the time, but when wasn’t I? Sleep and I have not gotten along ever. In fact, the time I slept the best was after my medical crisis. In part beacuse I was so drugged up, I slept a lot. Oh, also because I died. Twice. I always separate died and twice. I have no idea why, but I’m going to keep doing it, so sue me.


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Talking more about weapons because I can, part six

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Am I back to talk more about my weapon forms? Hell, yes I am! Or Taiji and Bagua in general. Here’s my post from yesterday. I’m stoked to be doing a weapon form for my teacher’s demo (don’t worry. I’ll be terrified later on. I jsut have nearly a year to work on it, so the negative feelings won’t settle in until, hopefully, months down the road). Will I be terrified before doing it? Yes.

I used to do dance when I was a kid and acting/performance whwen I was in my twenties. I got nervous/stage fright/sick to my stomach every time. I’ve forgotten lines while on stage (what actor hasn’t?), and I have survived it. The one thing that I know I need to do before the demo is do the form facing different walls and in different places. It’s too easy to rely on where I am facing in the room I always practice in. I know from switching rooms in the past that it confuses me.

Ideally, I would be able to practice in the actual room where I’ll be demoing before the day of the actual demo, but this probably won’t be possible. so the best alternative is to practice in different rooms facing different ways.

The other thing that I need to do is clean it up. I’ve already tightened it up some, but I need to go back through the form and make sure I have all the postures right. I would not be surprised if I was off on half-a-dozen of the postures. I also won’t be surprised if I’ve forgotten one or two postures. I know my brain isn’t working quite as well as I did before my medical crisis. My memory used to be stellar; now it’s at best adequate. It’s partly getting older, yes, but it’s also the stroke.

It’s funny. I rarely think about the stroke, even though in most cases, it would be a really serious thing. I am still incredibly grateful that I was able to recover from it with nothing more than my memory going bad, some problems doing math in my brain, and occasionally forgetting a word. I will take that over what a stroke usually did to you.

I rarely talk even think about the fact that I had a stroke, but I have. I’m not saying that as an excuse; it’s just facts. I had a stroke during my medical crisis, and I think that sometimes, I do need to pay more attention to it than I do. Not that I have to think about it all the time, but just to take into account that it did happen to me.

I think part of the problem is that the medical crisis I had, which by all accounts, should have knocked me down for the count, was something I walked away from less than a week after I woke up from a week-long coma. I still can’t believe it happened, even though it’s been four-and-a-half years.


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Weapon forms? Weapon forms it is (part four)

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We’re back to talk more about weapon forms. I need to get deep into my feelings about how learning the Double Fan Form changed me. Here is my post from yesterday talking about some of my issues learning Bagua–and some of my flaws in learning martial arts. I mentioned that I was lazy in a not-good way, and while I try not to get hung up on it, it does bother me sometimes.

Back when I first started learning Taiji, I went to one class a week. I could not make myself practice at home for the life of me. I tried and tried, but I just could not do it. In order to make up for it, I started to go to another class a week, and then another (so in total, three). I still could not make myself practice at home.

I don’t know why my brain just refused to do it. Any time I tried, it would scream at me not to do it. I could not force my body to practice. At all. So I tricked it. I started by doing five minutes of Taiji stretches a day. No actual Taiji, mind. Just five minutes of stretching. For whatever reason, my brain was fine with that. It wasn’t doing actual Taiji, see. It was just stretching.

That got by the block in my head, and then I was able to slowly build up a Taiji practice. In addition to the warmups, I did the Solo Form and walked the circle with my deer horn knives. Then, when I learned the Sword Form, my practice really started taking off. I love me my weapons, and being able to do them on the daily was my happy place.

For a while, it was just the Sword Form, left side and right side. Then, a few years later, I added the Saber Form (with much grief), right side and left side. Then, Cane Form, right and left. Hm. I might have learned that before the Saber–no, it was Saber Form then Cane Form. Then, a few staff/spear drills. Then, it was the Double Saber Form just as the pandemic hit. My teacher taught me the first part of it on Zoom (I think? I’m not sure I’m remembering it correctly), but then we reached a part that she wasn’t sure of. She didn’t say that to me, but we just did not move past a certain point.

I was getting frustrated so I asked if it was OK if taught the rest to myself. Her teacher had a video of his Double Saber Form (she had sent it to me earlier), so I could do it from that. It wasn’t ideal, but it was doable. She gave me her blessing (I wouldn’t have done it otherwise), and I went about teaching myself the rest of the form. It wasn’t too bad, though I need to do some clean up on it.


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Let’s talk more about weapons, part three

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Let’s talk more about weapons. Not necessarily which one I’m choosing for the demo because we all know it’s the Double Fan Form. It was always going to be the Double Fan Form. I mean, I did seriously conside the other weapon forms, and the Double Saber Form came in a close second. I love being a human blender with the double sabers. It’s so much fun! Here was the last post in which I–wait. I never made an official decision, did I? Well, this is the last post in which I mused a lot about it. In fact, I had made my decision for the most part before I even started musing about it, and then I was very tired, so I assumed I had made the actual decision by the end of the post.

So, just in case I haven’t been clear–I’m going to do the Double Fan Form. Which means I have to clean it up. In every form, there are a few postures that I’m not sure of and just fudge. Or I style it out. Or I just do something that’s suitable, but may not be the actual postures. In other words, I get stloppy. And then I have to go back and clean up the mess. Well, not mess, but the mistakes.

One of my flaws is that I get lazy, and not in the good way. What I mean is that I work so hard to learn a form, I’m all used up by the end. It’s a Herculean effort for me to just teach myself the form, my brain complains when I try do the corrections.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking that I have so much time to fix it beacuse it’s almost a year away–the demo I mean. I have two modes–go hard and don’t go at all. When I am in the latter mode, it’s really hard to push me into the former. It’s best for me to stay in the former mode so I won’t get stuck in the latter.

Don’t worry. I’m not talking about being a workaholic or pushing myself to burnout. That’s not my style at all. What I mean is that once I get into the flow, it’s easy for me to stay there. It’s just getting there in the first place that is so fucking hard.

I’m going to include a video of a really cool Fan Form just for the fun of it. It’s not one I do, but it’s really exciting to watch. And I’ve posted it before because it’s just that cool.

Back to the weapon forms. I am currently working on one new one. It’s the Bagua Knives Form because without a doubt, my favorite weapon is the Deer Horn Knives. They feel so right in my hands, that I want to hold them all the time. I was doing the Walking the Circle meditation with them to avoid Taiji meditation, and they became my favorite weapon.


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Ranking my BAEs (weapon forms), part two

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Let’s talk more about the Taiji weapon forms I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m going to do the Double Fan Form for the demo of my teacher’s school next Lunar Near Year. I had a whole post about musing over which weapon form I’ll do. It was my last post, and I narrowed it down to two different weapon forms–the Double Saber Form and the Double Fan Form.

To briefly sumarize why I decided not to do the others: I love the Sword Form, but it’s done as a group for the demo on a frequent basis, so I won’t do it for that reason. And even though I’m pretty sure it’ll be the right side, I don’t want to do the left side of a form that is already being done.

Saber is not a favorite of mine. I have learned to appreciate it after hatting it from the start. It wasn’t the weapon’s fault; I expecetd it to be like the Sword Form except heavier, but it wasn’t that at all. it has a totally different feel to it. You have to move it differently, and its spirit is much heavier than the sword.

My teacher told me the saber was for cavalry as they were used as meat shields. it was considered the lowest of the forms–or rather the easiest to learn. The Sword Form, which was the first form I was taught is considered the second most difficult form. When I asked my teacher why that was the first weapon to be taught, she didn’t really have an answer.

The staff/spear is the hardest weapon to learn, by the way. I know a few drills, but it’s not really one you can practice alone, apparently. Meaning, there really isn’t a Staff Form. I think there is a Spear Form, but I am not sure about that. I would love to do a two-person Spear Form, but it’s pretty far down on my list of weapons to learn.

Right now, I’m concentrating on the left side of the Solo Form. I taught it to myself many years ago, but my teacher’s teacher was in a ‘let’s improve everything at one time’ mood by the time I got to the third section of the form. He kept changing it, and it was frustrating me.   I know that forms are meant to be living and to be updated, but I needed to learn it first before I could start tweaking it. I decided to set it aside until my teacher’s teacher was satisfied with it for a measure of time.

I’m back at it because, and I hate to admit this aloud, I feel some shame that I don’t know the left side of the basic form. I’ve been studying for twenty years, and I should have taught it to myself fairly early on. I learned the right side (the basic form)  within the first year. So, it’s about time to right that wrong.


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Ranking my BAEs (weapon forms) for a reason

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A few months ago, after I finished teaching myself the Double Fan Form, I was talking with my teacher about it and how hard it was for me–to a surprising degree. It wasn’t that I thought it would be easy–well, if I’m going to be completely honest, I did think it would be if not easy, then smooth-sailing.

See, I am good at weapon forms. At learning them, I mean. Learning forms in general, I’m decent at. The Sword Form was the first weapon form I learned, and it was a breeze. Seriously. It was the most natural thing I’d ever done in my life. I loved it so much, and it was all I ever wanted to do with my life.

I’m not going to go through all the other weapons I’ve learned/taught myself, but suffice it to say that except for the Saber Form (which I learned second and mistook it for being the same as the sword but just heavier. It was so very different. Once I internalized this, I was able to learn it fairly easily).

When I decided to teach myself the Double Fan Form, I thought that it would go smoothly. I had already taught myself the Fan Form and the Double Saber Form. Both were intense, but they were both doable.

The longest it had taken me to learn a weapon form/teach one to myself was three months. I thought that should be enough to teach myself the Double Fan Form. And this was after watching several videos of it. I could not find a Yang-style form, so I chose the official Chen-style version with the resolution to adapt it as need be.

Keep that in the back of your mind as I tell you why I’m talking about all the different weapon forms that I have learned/taught myiself.

As I was talking to my teacher about learning the form and how hard it was, we were also talking about the demo that her school always does every year right around the Lunar New Year. She said that she would love for me to do the Double Fan Form for this year’s demo. This was in December, I think, so just two months before the demo.

I quickly said that I would not be ready for this demo (especially as we were talking about me doing the Double Fan Form). She said maybe for next year’s demo as it was a big anniversary for her teacher. We left it at that and moved on with my private lesson.

Yesterday, she was here for my private lesson. She mentioned her teacher’s big teaching anniversary next year (50th). She said that she really would like me to do one of my weapon forms for it. I immediately realized it was not a request, and I said that I would do it. She said that she would leave which form it would be up to me. I immediately said that it would be cool to do the Double Fan Form. She agreed without hesitation, mentioning that no one else in the studio knew that form.


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A Quick Look at the demo of Nioh 3 (Team NINJA), part four

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I’m back to talk more about the Nioh 3 (Team NINJA) demo because I can. And because I went into the area I mentioned in yesterday’s post–the one I was sure was a boss arena. I’ll get to that in a bit.

I was hesitant to jump back into the demo. I talked about it a bit in the last post, but I’m already overwhelmed by everything combat-wise. Let me briefly mention those things. On the samurai style side, it’s the fucking ki pulse. This has been a staple of the Niohs since the first game, and I have fucked it up every time. After you attack (X for light and Y for heavy), you hit RB to regain your ki (energy/stamina/blue bar). I can’t do it; I just cannot. I get it right maybe one out of every five tries–which is my usual rate when it comes to parrying as well. Anything rhythm/reflex based is just not good for me.

One thing that I like about the series is that you level up a weapon by using it through familiarity. Right now, I’m trying out different samurai weapons to see which class I like. I don’t like the hammer class because it’s waaaaaay too slow and heavy, but I do like spinning around in circles. I have not found an axe yet, which is usually my main. I like the odachi class quite a bit.

However. I much prefer the ninja style. Like vastly prefer. Like, I have to force myself to use the samurai style because I just don’t like it. It feels clumsy and artificially difficult to me.

I like the ninja style, especially because it comes with an array of ninjutsu. Those are the magicks in the game, which is my jam. I could never really make the magicks work for me, though. I mean, it was useful to have healing tickets, purifying tickets, defensive tickets, and more, but the offensive magicks just never felt that good. I’m fully aware that it might be a me problem, but I played a third of the first game; I should have had gotten some powerful maigcks.

Although, it’s quite possible I could have unlocked something powerful and just missed it. See, that’s another thing about the Niohs; the trees are just too massive. And there are so many of them. Each weapon class has its own skills, for example. Plus the basic skills you can get. I have exclamation points for all the weapon classes because I get tired at the thought of clicking through each one.

Side note: One of my evergreen complaints about the Niohs is just how much junk there is in the games. The loot drop is ridiculous and honestly, quite demotivating. At least I figured out you could flip on the option of automatically picking up the loot.


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A Quick Look at the demo of Nioh 3 (Team NINJA), part three

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Let’s talk more about the Nioh 3 (Team NINJA) demo. Why the hell not? I’ve explored more, and I have to say a few things. Here is my post from yesterday in which I talked a lot about the demo. Good and bad things, but mostly, what annoyed the fuck out of me. I’m going to continue with that today because it’s still annoying me.

I can’t get over that the default for the item pickup is not automatic. Why are you like this, Team NINJA?! Why the fuck would someone want to have to manually pick up each item from the ground,, especially when there are so many of them, arther than just walk over them to pick them up?

Also, you can’t put two important functions on the same button. You just canot. I mean, if you’re using them in different situations like one in combat and one out of it, then it’s ok. But if they are both used in combat, then you simply cannot put them both on the same button! I don’t know how that isn’t dev design 101.

In this case, it’s RT. It’s the button you hit to switch from samuari style to ninja style (sword fighting to stealth). However, it’s also the button you press to hdo a burst-counter/counter-burst.  The burst is when an enemy/boss does a bright red flash, and if you counter the attack, you do massive damage.

Except, it’s way tooo easy to switch fighting styles as you’re trying to do the counter-burst. I did it so many times, and it was aggravating. The internet informed me that there was an option that allowed you to make it so that you only had to tap the RT to do the counter-Thburst. Which, fine, great. That differentiates between the two, but it means that you have to press the RT for longer in order to switch styles. Itas so fucking exasperating. Just put it on a different button, damn it. They use so many of the buttons that maybe they don’t have one to spare, but still. It’s really annoying.

Today, I was in a new area. I was wandering around and really loving my bow. But, I was running out of ammo, which I hate. Usually you can pick up plenty as you go, but you have to have guys who are using bows in order to get arrow drops.

I neared what I thought was probably a boss arena, and I said, “Nope.” I just was not up for doing it. I have only faced the tutorial boss, and he whipped my ass over and over again. And over again. I knew he wasn’t supposed to be that hard. I knew he was supposed to be teaching me how to play the game, but I certainly wasn’t getting it. Even though I could see what I was supposed to be doing, I could not do it in time.


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