Underneath my yellow skin

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Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock); my official review, part eight

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I’m back with more thoughts on Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock). You would think that I have talked about it enough, but you would be wrong. I am so close to getting the plat. I have become engaged to the last datable person, and I’m a week away from marrying them. Once that happens, then I’m done with the game.

I have to admit it’s a relief. I’m so tired, and yet, I can’t stop playing. It’s because of that one fucking achievement that I decided not to do on my first playthrough. This is all my fault, by the way. I know me. I know how I am. I should have just done it when I had the chance. Barring that, I should have just left it undone. But no. It’s simply not in me to do that, and I’m not proud of it.

Back to the game and what I was talking about in the last post. The romance options. I freely admit that I am not about that dating life–in games or in real life. I don’t like dating sims for the most part or when there’s dating in games that aren’t focused on that. The rreason why is because it’s usually just transactional, which I understand from a gaming point of view. I don’t see it as much more than a bunch of fetch quests, though, or plugging coins in a vending machine to get what you want.

In fact, I loved Saints Row IV (Volition) because it made such fun of the way other games did romance. You can sex up anyone in Saints Row IV just by blunting propositioning them (and you get a variety of hilarious answers in response)–except Keith David. No matter how hard you try, you cannot seduce him. Everyone else, though? Very fair game.

In this game, I’m unclear how much you have to gift a datable person in order to get them to the point where they ask you out. I know it makes the progress go faster, but I think you can get there without it. I would not know because I gave gifts to the datables every day. But, when you reach a full heart, you have to trigger a special cutscene in order to move to the next level of your relationship (this is true of all the relationships in general, by the way, not just the romantic ones). Then, you go on a date (same date for every person but one), and the other person declares their love for you. If you want to move the relationship forward, you have to say yes. Or at least not say no. Sometimes there was a ‘I’m not sure’ option, but I never chose that, so I don’t know what it actually does.


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A major runner up and other great games of 2024

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I have one last really big award to give, but that is a post for tomorrow (or later). Yesterday, I gave out my game of the year to the best non-From (indie) game I played this year. I wanted to do a post about games I enjoyed, but didn’t quite make it to the ‘best of’ list, and then I remembered a game I played a ton of mid-year and quite enjoyed. I have to give it a lot of credit because it’s another smallish indie team (25 employees the Google tells me), and it made a game with a lot of heart. I actually enjoyed it more (at the time) than the two games I gave awards to in the post before yesterday’s.

I’ll talk about that first and then give out a bunch of honorable mentions to games that I enjoyed playing, but fell off of for whatever reason. Most of them are indie games, of course, and there are a lot of cats involved.

Best game in which you get to play as a cutely animated (but beleaugured) Death as he tidies up the underworld

Have a Nice Death (Magic Design Studios)

I played this in May, apparently. I completely forgot about it until I was thinking back on the games I’ve played this year. Then, I was confused as to whether I played it last year or this. I had to reinstall it on Xbox so I could see when I played it, and much to my surprise, it was June. I had thought it was late last year or if later than that, then in January or February of tihs year. But, no. It was June.

I had to play it on easy beacuse platforming is not my thing. At all. I have lousy reflex/reaction times, and I have no spatial assessment abilities. This has all gotten worse since my medical crisis, and I have to be realistic about what I can and can’t do. I tried to play the game on normal difficulty, but at a certain point, I realized that I had to knock it down in order to finish it.

Technically, I did not finish the game because even playing it on easy mode, I could not beat the real final boss. I could barely even unlock this boss, let alone do any real damage to the boss. I think in all my time playing the game, I only reached this boss once or twice? Hell, I don’t know if I’ve even reached the true final boss because the way to unlock them is very unforgiving, especially for soomeone like me with all my hidden issues.

I had fun with the game and was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable it was. Again, platforming is not my thing, but there was enough here to keep me engaged. I will say that this game has less to offer than others of its ilk, but it’s still a good game. I liked the Twinsie as my main weapon, and there are plentiful cloak weapons (powerful, but with cooldowns), and spells with different abilities (statuses like bleed).


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Indie games vs. Triple A games, part three

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More about indie games and AAA games.

Side note: And, yes, this is probably the earliest I have done this. Sony is talking about buying FromSoft’s parent company. Not because of FromSoft, per se, but that’s just a cherry on top of the deal. And it made me immediately worried because Sony looooooves themselves an exclusive, and I have no intention of buying a PS5. Plus, my PS4 is busted, I think. Totally my own fault. I hate the PS4, anyway, and the DualShock 4. I HATE that controller so much, and I can’t even tell you why. Anyway, if From games suddenly become exclusives for the PS for the first year or so, well, that is going to make me very unhappy. But I doubt I would actually buy a console, anyway.

Just finished up a cute little game called Supurr Cat Cafe: Sandwich Rush by 2 Nerdy Nerds. At first I thought it was initially a mobile game, but now, I’m not so sure. It doesn’t really matter; I played it on the PC. The basic gist of it is that you (Olive. That’s your name, not just a fruit/vegetable/ingredient in your sandwiches) re-open (I think?) of a cat cafe. You and your cat, Maka.

It has a simple premise. Olive races around the cafe with a big platter over her head. She catches ingredients as they fall to make sandwiches. Gotta start with bread (with or without butter) and then add to it. You can slap a piece of second piece of bread whenever you want as long as there is one other ingredient between the two pieces of bread. If you put three different ingredients on the piece fo bread, then another piece of bread, it’s a stack (I think?). That’s the whole point of the game–making as many stacks as you can.

As the game goes on, you get different items you can buy to make your sandwiches better. You also can buy some things to decorate your cafe with. Oh, and of course you can adopt cats and put them in cute costumes. If you level them up, they will help out with the sandwiches. Unfortunately, they aren’t discriminatory about what ingredients they put on the sandwiches, which is a problem. You can’t put three of the same ingredients on the sandwich in a row, and you can’t serve a sandwich without bread on top of it. The cats will throw the ingredients on the sandwich so fast, I can’t always avoid the ones I don’t want.


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More maundering about FromSoft games

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In the last post, I ended by saying controversially that Dark Souls III is the best of the trilogy. Overall. That’s not the most controversial opinion about the series (I have heard tell of a few people who actually believe the second game is the best game. That will get them run off the forums every time. The thing is, I can see their train of thought, and I don’t entirely disagree with them. No, the second game is not the best of the three, but it really did try to be something different than the first game. It deserves more credit than it gets for that, and it’s still eons better than so many games out there), but it’s still readily dismissed in the community.

There are sneers of fan service (but the second game got dinged for not being connected, really), but as someone in the RKG Discord pointed out, why not put in things that appeal to your fans? If fans like something in the game, why not put more in there? He was very eloquent about why the game is great, and I really appreciate it because I get tired of trying to defend the game. I remember there was a woman who played it (she loves the first game) and she was so down on it. She said she played it in thirty-five hours, and she was sure she had seen everything. I’m sorry, but no. There was no way she saw everything, even if she one-shot every boss. My guess was that she missed two of the big optional areas, which, fine. It’s not easy to find everything in the ga;me, but to say a month or so after the game was released that she had seen everything? That’s hubris.

I try not to say how long it would take to play one of these games because I’m terrible at them and take a time-and-a-half that most people take. People talk about playing Elden Ring in a hundred hours, and I was only halfway through the game at that point. My first playthrough took over 200 hours, but I actually saw almost everything in that one playthrough. Not many people can say that.

A friend of mind has suggested that I have imposter’s syndrome when it comes to From games, and it’s possibly true. The thing is that if you spend any time in a From forum (even RKG Discord), you get the toxic mindset of there is only one true way to play these games. RKG are less toxic about it than most content creators (as are the slugs, what we fans call ourselves), but it’s still a throughline of the comments, apparently, especcially on Reddit. And it’s annoying to see the results of those comments in the playthrough itself.

If I were to ever play a From game on camera, my main rule would be: No fucking backseat gaming. No exceptions. Well, one exception. Let me know if I missed a bonfire/checkpoint, but other than that, shut the fuck up. I remember one time I was watching a content creator play Bloodborne on his channel. He made it crystal clear that he was not having any backseat gaming. His commenters kept breaking that rule and worse yet, were pushing back on him for having that rule. He finally said, “It’s my channel. I get to say what I will and won’t tolerate.”


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Rigid routine–until Saturday

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So I have a daily martial arts routine. I used to call it my Taiji routine, but I have added Bagua to it so ‘martial arts’ routine or ‘internal martial arts’ routine is more apt.

I have evolved it to the point where it’s an hour long (if I don’t stop and scroll on my phone, which I actually do). If I get caught up browsing online, it can stretch to two hours.

Anyway, it goes like this. As Shadow begrudgingly eats his breakfast (or scarfs it down. Never anywhere in the middle), I start doing the arm stretches. It can take Shadow up to a half hour to eat a meal, so I can do all the stretches during that time. Arm, leg, waist, and more. Then, after Shadow finishes his brekkie, I can do the rest of the routine–which is the weapons. Oh, I also do the Bagua while he’s eating unless I’m walking the circle with the DeerHorn Knives. That takes a lot of space, which my kitchen does not have.

My weapons forms schedule is a bit more elaborate. It goes like this. Every day, I do the Fan Form, the Sword Wu-Li (dancing) Form, a row or two of the Cane Form (both sides), staff/spear drills, and the Double Saber Form. Then, on Monday, I do the Saber Form (both sides). Sword Form (right) on Tuesday. Wednesday used to be the day I did the whole Cane Form (both sides), but I’m trying to break it down a bit more to polish it. Thursday is the /egn side of the Sword Form , and Friday is the Karambit Form. The what? The Karambit Form, which is not either Taiji nor Bagua. I’ll get to Saturday in a second.

I also do the weight set on Tuesday and Friday. It’s three simple movements of a freeweight on each side. My teacher said that I only needed to use an eight-pound weight, but I’ve moved up to ten-pound weights. I have a twelve-pound, fifteen-pound, and twenty-pound, too. I gave one of each to my brother’s ex-wife (back when they were married), so I only have one of each left.

Let’s talk Saturday. That is the day I have a class. I want to add another one this year. I would like to go in person, but I’m not sure my body can handle it. My immune system is shitty, and I do not want to get walking (non-Covid-related) pneumonia again.

Anyway. Saturday. It’s the day I’ve decided I can do whatever I want with my weapons. Here’s the thing. I am very rigid in my sechduling. I like to do things in the same order at the same time, etc. But there’s another part of me that just wants to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it. That’s the part of me that I indulge on Saturday. It’s because I have class so I’ll be doing all the warmups/stretches I do on the regular. So on Saturday, I don’t do the stretches and just groove withthe weapons. It’s a nice release, honestly.


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Lords of the Fallen–where the frustration lies

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I wrote my first impressions about Lords of the Fallen (HexWorks/CI Games) in my last post. I said after playing up and through the first boss, I would hesitantly give the game a 7 out of 10. I also mentioned that the reviews have been very disparate. And, I agree with almost everything everyone has said. Both negative and positive. I have managed to go up and through the second boss (not that big a deal). The second boss is right next to the first, really. You can do other stuff before that, but you can also just go the the second boss.

She’s in the church next to the hub. She’s called

*SPOILER*

Scourged Sister Delyth. And she’s….ah…I have no idea what’s her deal. Yes there is a remembrance about her, but it’s very vague. And I ran into an NPC who muttered a few vague threats. And there are all the praying people around, but other than that, she’s just a woman with a flail that can be radiant. Oh, and if you figth her in a certain area, she has a shield. Which means you have to find her parasite in the umbral realm and soulflay it before you can fight her–or draw her to the front of the church where she’s not protected by it.

In addition, the arena is weirdly-shaped. This is an issue I’ve had with much of the game. It is way too easy to get caught on a corner or not be able to see the enemy. And not just because the devs LOVE a hidden enemy.

By the way, this is another wrong lesson so many devs of soulslikes have taken from the FromSoft games–hidden enemies do NOT make the game difficult in a good way. In this section of the game, there is a kind of enemy whose first attack is a push. And they like to put him hidden behind a box so that when you walk by him, he pushes you off a cliff.

This happens in Dark Souls III in The Ringed City DLC, and it’s just as infuriating then. That whole opening bit of this area is harder than it needs to be. I actually cried when I reached this bonfire (after a tough boss fight) and was immediately invaded. Ok, that’s speaking to the difficulty of the previous area, but still. This particular section was brutal. I’m talking about Dark Souls III, by the way. Still my favorite game ever, now tied with Elden Ring.

Back to Lords of the Fallen! I had seen Dave from Playstation Access (video included below) do the section I’m in. That helped a lot Well, it comforted me the nth time I missed a jump on the swinging platforms. I did much worse than Dave did, but at least I didn’t have to wear a red dunce cap with someone adding N-O-O-B to it.


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The downsides to being the outlier

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I like being a weirdo for the most part. It doesn’t bother me except when it comes to health issues. I’m allergic to everything and have a bad reaction to everything else. Yes, I know that’s not possible, but roll with me on it. I know that I’m going to have an outsized reaction to everything from allergies to bug bites to medication. I just accept that if it takes most people a few days to get over things, it’ll take me a week.

Which is fine and dandy, but the issue is that when something out-of-the-norm happens, I tend to think it’s normal for me. For example, I got a yellow jacket sting a week ago today. It swelled up and got red and stayed that way for a few days. Fine. I cleaned it out and iced it, and I assumed it’d be fine in a  week or so. Everything I read said that it should be ok within a day or two. I dismissed that because I knew it wasn’t true. My Taiji teacher’s husband had severe reactions to wasp stings in which everything around it would swell up like a balloon. He took Benadryl which helped, and the swellen would slowly decrease over a week. Same with her own bites.

So, yeah, I wasn’t worried when the swelling and redness didn’t disappear in two days. It was going down, albeit slowly, and I figured it would be fine in a week or so. I will admit I scratched at it a bit, which is not a good thing. Obviously, but it was so itchy. I did my best, but I gave in to the impulse to scratch now and again.

Yesterday, I woke up and it was swollen and red again. I wasn’t feeling great, but it wasn’t anything obvious like wanting to vomit or diarrhea. Plus, my finger didn’t actually hurt. I slathered antibiotic cream on it and anti-itch lotion. I talked about it with a few people, and they were like, you could get it looked at. Neither were too concerned, and neither was I.

Today, however, I woke up and it was angry red, stiff, and swollen. I had a hard time bending it. It still didn’t hurt, but I was worried. I called my doctor’s office and talked to a nurse. She had me describe it to her. She wanted me to take a pic, but then corrected herself. She said because of how large the red section was (from above the second knuckle to an inch or so on the back of my hand), I should come in today if possible. She mentioned cellulitis, which is an infection. Which was mentioned in the research I had done, but just glancing.

I had been worried about an allergic reaction, but I knew that was immediate. I didn’t think about that it could be infected, but once she mentioned it, it was so obvious. I got an appointementt for today (with the doctor I had left, but I can’t be choosy because i need it to be seen).


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My body rocks

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I’m really feeling myself today. I don’t know why. I mean, in general, I’ve upped the self-positivity by 1000%, but today, it’s sky-high. I’m feeling my biceps, literally, loving how hard and bulgy they are. I’m thicc with two cs, but also with a ck. I’ve had muscular thighs and calves my whole life. I’ve always been self-conscious about it, but now, i’m all about it.

The last guy I dated got angry because I had bigger biceps than he did. That was indicative of many things wrong with him, but it also shows the rampant misogyny in Western culture (there is misogyny in Eastern culture, too, but it manifests slighly differently).

I spent so much of my life trying to make myself smaller. That was the first thirty years of my life. Trying to diet myself into non-existence. I was a size 0 at one point, and that wasn’t enough for me. It didn’t help that my BMI at that time had me on the edge of overweight (within five pounds). I say this to emphasize what hot garbage BMI is an a personal assessment tool. And it’s so damn  common in Western society.

Fuck all that noise. I admit. I was feeling a bit down yesterday about my weight. Hey, I live in this deeply fatphobic society. I have been weight-shamed before. It’s sadly a fact of life in this society. And it’s working so well, obviously, as Americans are heavier than ever. Because we know that shaming people is the way to get them to do what you want them to do. It worked on me!

That’s sarcasm, in case you can’t tell. It did actually work on me for a while because shame is what drove me deep into anorexia with a side helping of bulimia! Twice! Shame is what made me hate myself and wish I were dead because I thought I was grotesque and ugly, that no man (at that point) would ever want a disgusting piece of garbage like me.

It didn’t help me that I was Asian, too. Because they are not shy about telling you how fat you are. Weight is not verboten, and women are supposed to take up no space. So, yeah. I got it on all side. My mom put me on my first diet when I was seven, but also gave me contradicting messages. I was fat and needed to lose weight, but I also had to finish everything on my plate because starving kids in Africa.

By the way. I still don’t get how that is applicable to what an American kid is eating for dinner. If the American kid doesn’t eat her Brussels sprouts, it’s not as if they can mail the sprouts to Africa. Also by the way, I didn’t learn to like veggies until I realized that boilng the hell out of them was not the way to cook them.


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More on Ravenswatch by Passtech Games

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In the last post, I gave my quick impressions on the game Ravenswatch by Passtech Games. I also updated on my onebro run in which I’m only doing it for fun. As soon as I stop having fun, I’m done. I talked about my apprehension fighting the Capra Demon because of the ridiclously tiny fighting arena and the two doggos who do bleed. Normally, my way of dealing with him is to run past him and up the stairs if I’m not blocked by the dogs. Then, kill the dogs as quickly as possibly before magicking the Capra Demon to death.

I was concerned this time because I hadn’t leveled, so I didn’t know if I’d have enough stamina to do all that. I did have the Grass Crest Shield, which is the stamina regen shield. It only blocks 95% physical. It works even if you put it on your back, and it’s the go-to shield if you can’t level up. At least it should be.

This shield is in an area that most people won’t go to in the beginning ,but you can get there fairly early. I got the shortcut unlocked, which meant I had access to the Flink Shrine and ten Estus Flask sips. I’m still wearing the pyromancer togs, which is one of tthe lightest armor set in the game. I’m contemplating getting the Havel ring in order to wear heavier armor, but I don’t want to deal with him yet.

I had a bit of trouble with the ninjas because I usually just get them from afar. For whatever reasons, they were on me more quickly this time (probably because my endurance is crap), and I ran back in order to find the end of their leash and then cheese them in that way. I think they got me once, but I made it through the second time round. I opened the shortcut and then went to face the Capra Demon.

I bought 98 Firebombs beforehand (you can hold 99 at a time and I picked one up on the way). I had a long bow from a pickup, and while I could not use it, I only wanted it ofro the crosshairs. I got to the Capra Demon with nine Estus sips ready to go. I decided to try it once before resorting to the Firebomb cheese. I took a deep breath and traversed the white light. I had my shield up and raced to the left. Much to my surprise, I got up the stairs and quickly dispensed of the dogs. I had 60 of the basic Soul Arrows because I saved the sorcerer, and once the doggos were gone, I just followed my usual M.O. of spelling the Capra Demon from afar from the ledge as he slowly comes towards me. Then, when he gets up the stairs, I hug the wall next to me with my shield up, take the hit as he jumps down and swings at me with his two massive cleavers, and then heal up before spelling him again.

I didn’t even come close to running out of Soul Arrows, and it was a one-and-done for me. Now, I have 99 Firebombs that I don’t need (one of my RKG buddies called them Minnatov cocktails, which I loved), but I’m sure Ican find a use for them. Next up is the Depths and saving my boy, Laurentius, so I can upgrade my pyro flame. Plus get the Large Ember so I can upgrade my Battle Axe to +10.


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I said the quiet part out loud

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Two posts ago, I wrote about how I knew I would be a terrible mother. It’s funny how people freak out when you say that out loud as a female-shaped person. It’s the same when I matter-of-factly state that I’m fat–that really makes some people uncomfortable. The latter is because ‘fat’ has become such a pejorative word. It’s a clinical one to me, stripped of any judgment. I have pockets of adipose on my body. That’s it. That’s all. It should not be a moral statement, but in our country, it most definitely is.

Similarly, when I say that I would have been a terrible mother, that’s not a moral judgmement. That is a shrewd self-assessment that prevented me from making the biggest mistake of my life. I cannot tell you how much horror I have in my heart at the idea of having children. Like, butt-clenching, gut-churning fear. I was once arguing about abortion with a so-called liberal Catholic man who insisted that women had to be punished for having sex outside the marriage by being forced to carry a pregnancy to fruition.

Of course he did not phrase it that way, but that was what he meant. He talked about consequences of your actions, but he meant punishment. Because it boiled down to how dare those slutty McSluttersons have all that slutty, slutty sex and not feel ashamed of it at all? He likened it to breaking your leg while skiing and that while you may not have meant for it to happen, you had to deal with it, anyway. Which, I mean, yes. Because your leg is fucking broken. You can’t do anything about that except have it taken care of. Put in a cast and whatnot. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen or magically make it not happen. But, when you get pregnant, you CAN take care of it by having an abortion. That’s a consequence in and of itself! An abortion from what I’ve read and heard is not an easy thing. Emotionally or physically. It’s not, as I’ve written before, just like deciding to drive through the McDonald’s and get yourself an abortion to go.

Even if it was, by the way, it would still be the pregnant person’s decision to make. That’s something I dislike from the Democrats. Emphasizing that it’s the last resort. It doesn’t have to be! If I ever got pregnant, it would have been my first resort. Without a second thought. I would book it as fast as I could and feel nothing but relief at getting it taken care of.

I pressed the ‘liberal’ Catholic on his desire to punish women for having sexy sex. He was uncomfortable with my argument, but I didn’t care. His religion was not mine, so I did not appreciate him using it to strip me of my rights, especially as he was a dude. He would never have to deal with the consequences himself so it was easy for him to say that pregnant people should not be able to have abortions.

Side note: I once had a boyfriend who stated that he wanted me to have the child if I got pregnant. He had an ex who had an abortion and became severely depressed afterwards. It caused them to break up, which was sad, yes, but I did not see what that had to do with me. He was convinced that it was her getting an abortion that caused the relationship to break up.

Becoming unhinged


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