All right. We’re at the end of the year (nearly) and at the end of my award posts (nearly). I have three awards left to give (nearly) in a year that defies definition. The fact that I am here to write this is amazing in and of itself. I can’t overemphasize this point enough–I should be dead. The fact that I’m alive at all is unbelievable. The fact that I don’t have any lasting damage (that I know of) is a miracle. And, yes, I’ve come around full circle to the word. I am a miracle. While I’m not embracing it, I’m not pushing it away, either. No, it doesn’t mean anything in my day-to-day, but it’s useless to deny or push back on it, either.
Before I get tot the awards, however, I want to say something about Spiritfarer by Thunder Lotus Games because I finished the Jackie & Daria update and it really hit me hard. I did not care for the ungainly and clumsy platforming in the Daria parts–please, for the love of all the gods, if you are not a platforming game, do NOT include platforming in the essential gameplay sections. I’m including FromSoft in this because they LOVE their platforming sections and they’re all bad–and it got so bad, I nearly quit the update. The controls are squishy and there is overdrift in every direction. Having platforms that disappear is bullshit and being able to fall all the way down to the beginning of the section again is bullshit. I actually cursed during this section, which is not what a cozy game should engender in me while I play it. If Ian had been around, I would have made him do the platforming sections without hesitation.
Jackie, on the other hand, quickly wormed his way into my heart. A loud and foul-mouthed, crass, coarse, brash hyena who works as an orderly in a hospital and has an inflated view of himself–one that is clearly just a mirage. He knows that he’s not any of the stuff he’s saying he is and he knows that he’s a piece of shit. It’s funny because I was talking to Ian about dirtballs and how I have a soft spot for them. That’s exactly what Jackie is and the fact that his steady stream of cursing is similar to what’s going on in my brain.
It’s clear that he was in a lot of pain that he wasn’t dealing with.