Underneath my yellow skin

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My 2025 game awards

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Ok. I’ve been rambling about my year in gaming, so I’m going to jump right  into the game awards I’m giving this year. The main theme of this year has me being simultaneously disappointed and hyped about the same game. I mean,  most games have good and bad to them, but this year, there were several games that were elicited very split emotions in me.

The game I would have unabashedlly adored  if it had ended one act earlier:

Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo (Galla)

Big sigh with this game. Every time I think of it, I get sad all over again. It’s such a charming, quirky, visually gorgeous game that engaged me and entertained me It’s bright and colorful, and you plpay as a dead snake who goes around helping souls in limbo release their hold on this world.

I played the generous demo and was immediately drawn into the game. You roll around as the dead snake, which is the only movement you can make. Then, you have to collect, uh, stars? Lights? Something bright and twinkly, don’t remember what, as your currency. You have to solve puzzles or mysteries, rather, and chat up several vivid, memorable NPCs. I think the demo was the whole first chapter, one out of five, which took me an hour or so to finish. And I know I missed some stuff, but I wasn’t  worried about that. I assumed I would be starting from scratch when I played the game for real.

I knew within minutes of playing the demo that I would want to play the full game. The story was simple, but engaging. A dead snake rolled his way around this world, helping stuck souls along the way. He met so many interesting characters along the way, helping several of the along the way.


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New year, new me, who dis? 2026, part three

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Before my medical crisis, I had a good routine. I got up whenever and did my Taiji regime (as I fondly called it). That took an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Then, I had my coffee as I slowly browsed the ‘net. Once I was done with that, it was time to write a blog post. After that (which took a couple of hours), I would do my work during the afternoon, and then write for a few hours at night. I had Taiji class three times a week and a private lesson every other week. That was my life, and I was comfortable with it.

Then, medical crisis and a disruption to my life at the end of 2021. And while I still do my Taiji/Bagua routine, everything else has gone sideways. I still write a post a day, but it varies wildly when I actually get it done.

I do start out with my Taiji/Bagua routine, which takes roughly two hours. That’s because I dawdle here and there, though. The routine itself is probably about an hour and a half. Lately, I’ve been scrolling in between (and while) doing, which makes it stretch out.

I want to get back to having a schedule so I don’t feel adrift. And because it’s too easy for me to shrug off the nighttime writing without it. It used to be that I did all that on my laptop. Now, I only do the fiction writing on my laptop and the rest on my desktop. Since I’m spending most of my time on my desktop, it’s too easy to just not go to my laptop until it’s time to sleep.

I need to do whatever it takes to get back to writing. I miss it. I have said that it’s a fair trade to give it up for being alive, but I don’t see why I can’t have both.

I do think that my brain is different since then. That’s not bad or good–it just is.

When  I talked to K the night before last, we were discussing life in general and this stage of life in specific. She was saying that she was starting to think about what she really wanted to do next. She urged me to do the same, and while I got what she was saying, I had a hard time envisioning what I wanted.

I have not ever had a dream or a vision or a plan for my life. I never had a five-year plan or anything grandiose like that. Basically, I was just trying to make it from one day to the next, and I don’t really have a bigger picture plan.

She’s not wrong, though. It is about time for me to take a stepp back and soften my gaze so I can see the world (and my life) more broadly.


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New year, new me, who dis? 2026, part two

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In my second post about my life and goals in 2026, I want to talk about going outside the box. I have a tendency to keep to a strict routine, in part because I have a bunch of allergies and health issues that makes it difficult for me to be around other people. I want to slowly expand my life, and I have a few ideas what I want to do. Here is the post from yesterday in which I talked about a few things I wanted to do in the new year.

I want to expand a bit more on Taiji and Bagua. I have gotten lazy with my practice, and I want to tighten up my forms. I also want to not scan my phone as I’m practicing. I have started the bad habit of scrolling on my phone whilst practicing, and that’s not something I want to keep doing. Not only is it bad for my concentration and form, I lose track of time and my regime takes much longer than it should.

I want to teach myself the left side of the Swimming Dragon Form. I’ve started doing it already. Initially, it was so I could do mud stepping on the left side, but now, I want to teach myself the form in the standard way. I don’t really consider that teaching myself a new form, though. I also want to make sure the 3rd part part of the 3rd section of the Solo (Long) Form (Taiji) is solid. My teacher’s teacher has changed quite a few things in the Solo Form, and I tend to neglect it for other more exciting things.

I also want to teach myself the Swimming Dragon Form with DeerHorn Knives, but that’s a bit more complicated than just adding DeerHorn Knives to the form.

I was talking to K, and she mentioned something called The Moth. It’s like slam poetry, except it’s short stories. She told me about it because she loved the stories I told her about the delusions I had in the hospital. At first, she said I should write a book of short stories about my delusions, and then she mentioned The Moth. Coincidentally, they were here in MN last night (when I talked to K). I took that to mean that I should look further into them. To that end, let’s continue my list.

4. Writing about my medical crisis. This is what I was talking about above. Yes, I will be including it in my novemoir (I AM going to make that a thing), but I also want to write something specifically about my medical crisis. It might be a bunch of short stories. It might be a screenplay. It might be a performance piece. I used to write and perform performance pieces when I was in my twenties and early thirties, which was draining, but very fun.


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What games define me, part five

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I am back for one last post about the ten games that define me. I have been all over the map in the prior posts, and in the last one, I spent the entire post talking about Dark Souls III (FromSoft), my all-time favorite game. Well, at least until….I’ll get to that in a minute. It still snuggles in the center of my bosom and warms my cold heart because  it was the game that got me to truly fall in love with FromSoft games. And because it showed me that with perseverance I can–you know what, no. That’s not the main lesson I learned from my time with Dark Souls III. Yes, I did hundo chievo’ed the game and eventually soloed every boss. So I could plausibly say that it did teach me perseverance in the face of adversity.

However. What it taught me more was that I didn’t have to put up a stick up my ass and adhere to the whiny fans who drone on and on about ‘gitting gud’ and being ‘pure’, whatever the fuck THAT means. (Yes, I do actually know what that means. It means not Haveling it up; not going dex; not going strength; not being Giant Dad; not summoning humans, not using magic/pyro/miracles/sorcerices/incantations; and all that bullshit. In other words, YOU CAN’T HAVE FUN!!)

Ahem.

Let’s talk about my tenth game, which is, yes, indeed, my favorite game ever. It’s one and the same for me because this game represents something pretty significant in my life.

Let me paint a picture for you. It was the summer of 2019. GeoffCon was coming up, and everyone knew that there was going to be a trailer for this game. It was leaked (that it was going to be shown), but also, it just seemed like it was time.

The trailer was hype. Everyone was hyped for it. I was already looking forward to the game, and I could not wait. The trailer, which I’ve included below, blew me away. I could not wait for the game, even though I was going to have to wait–along with the rest of the world.

That game?

10. Elden Ring. Developed by FromSoft, of course. It was my most highly-anticipated game of all time, and the announcement trailer did not disappoint.

Then, however, the ppandemic happened. And FromSoft went quiet for quite some time. It was so long, fans started making up their own areas, enemies, and bosses in the game–which was actually quite sweet. This was on Reddit, of course, which is usually a cesspool. In this case, however, it was a force for good, and it really lifted my spirits as I waited for the game to release.


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What games define me, part four

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We are coming into the homestretch of me talking about the ten games that define me or the ten games you need to know I’ve played to kknow more about me. I talked about games 7 and 8 in the last post, and they were both catch-alls for a genre rather than noted just for the games themselves.

This list is supposed to be the list of ten games that people need to know you’ve played in order to know more about you, not necessarily your top ten games or your top ten favorite games of all time. I’ve done a little of colum A and a little of colum B. In this case, however, we need to talk about my two favorite games of all time because they are the two games that define me as a gamer, and to some extent, a person.

9. Dark Souls III (FromSoft). Up until recently*, this was my favorite game of all time. This is the game that got me to fall hopelessly in love with FromSoft games, and it’s the first From game I played real time with the community. That was in 2016, and I could not get enough of it. It was so hard, and I was furious at a choice I made (which got me to look things up on the regular rather than try to do it all myself). My favorite armor piece of all time is in this game (the Sage’s Big Hat), and it’s a tribute to a character in the first game (Big Hat Logan).

This game pushed me to be better than I thought I could be. Back then, I bought into the whole ‘you have to solo the bosses to be a rEaL sOuLs PlAyEr’ mentality, but I just could not do it with this game. There were four bosses I needed to summon for (Abyss Watchers, Pontiff Sulyvahn, Twin Princes (Prince Lothric and Prince Lorian), and Nameless King. I did not feel good about it, and I rectified it on my second playthrough. I have also soloed all the bosses in the DLCs.

It took me twice as long to beat the game for the first time as it always done. I’m really bad at games, and it always takes me nearly double the time it takes other people to finish a game. Some of that is me doing every bit of content I can in a game, but it’s also me being shit at most games. This is the game that taught me patience, persistence, and resigning myself to banging my head over and over and over again. It broke me down, only to (somewhat) build me back up again.

But! It also taught me that I don’t have to do it the hard way if I don’t feel like it. The freeing thing in playing a second time through is that I can cheese all I want–cheese to my heart’s content. I don’t give a fuck because I no longer have to prove anything to anyone. I have played this game dozens of times, and one of the fun things for me to do is find creative new ways to cheese the bosses.

I have played this game several dozen times. I may not have finished all of them, but I have finished the game at least ten times, if not more (with DLC). I have played up to NG+5 or +6, and there’s a joy in being so OP, I can kill most anything without a second thought. In addition, once I have beaten a From game, I have no qualms about summoning humans in future playthroughs.


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What ten games define me, part three

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I’m back to talk more about the ten games that define me. I have managed to write about six in two posts, which is pretty good for me. They are in no particular order, though I’m doing them loosely chronologically. I think today I will focus on two games that represent categories of games, rather than just be included for the one game itself. In the last post, I wrote about two cozy games that really touched my heart.

As I have written in past posts, I like FromSoft games and cozy games for the most part. Then, there are a few games here and there that I like which don’t fit those two categories. One of them is roguelike-lites, which definitely do not like me Let’s start with that.

7. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (Edmund McMillen). This is not the first roguelike-lite I became  obsessed with-that would be Nuclear Throne (Vlambeer). It’s not my favorite roguelike-lite, either. That would be Hades (Supergiant Games)–and yes, I mean the original game not the sequel.

This is, however, the one I’ve played the most BY FAR. In fact, checks Steam, it’s the game I’ve played the most, and it’s not even close. I have more hours into it than into Dark Souls III and Elden Ring combined. There was a long stretch of time (like two years) in which I played a run a day. At that point, a run took over an hour, and you couldn’t save. I hundo chievo’ed Rebirth, and it’s by far my favorite iteration of the game.

I can’t really tell you why I was obsessed with it for so long excep to say that it became my comfort game and a part of my routine. I would not feel complete until I had played (and won) a run. If you had told me that I would have platted it, I would have laughed in your face. There were so many things in the plat that I would have thought impossible. I cheesed a few of them, but it still wasn’t easy.

It’s not an easy game to love, both for the disturbing content and the frustrating combat. McMillen grew up Catholic, and this was a product of that childhood. The story is grim, and it’s oftentimes sobering to really think about the characters/monsters in the game.

Isaac is, of course, named after the nearly-sacrificied Isaac in the Bible, and he is the first playable character in the game. The other playable characters also have Biblical names, such as Judas, Maggie (I assume she’s named for  Mary Magdalene), and Azazel. As someone  who grew up in a very restrictive religion, I related to what McMillen was saying with this game.

The basic premise was that there was a little boy (Isaac) whose mother is religious. When her husband leaves them, her mother goes off the deep end and starts experiencing, well, religious psychosis would be a pretty apt way to describe it. She’s convinced that god is telling her to do terrible things, so she ends up locking up Isaac in the basement and more.


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What ten games define me, part two

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I have been musing about the ten games that define me, and I made it to number four in the time I allotted to myself yesterday. Quite frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised I got that far, and let’s see if I can get four more today. I doubt it, but know hope!

Before I dive in, I want to say that this is not necessarily a list of my ten favorite games, but of the ten games that you need to know are important to me in order to know me. With that distinction in mind, let’s dive in.

5. Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall). This game broke me. I didn’t expect it, too, and it wasn’t an immediate break. I will be frank. The reasons I played it was because I dug the graphics, I dug the vibe, and I really dug that the protag was a small, awkward black cat. I will be honest. I did not gel with the game for the first few hours. I felt I was fighting the game more than I was playing it. And, I missed a very important mechanic of the game for my entire first playthrough.

I really liked the protagonist of the game. I identified strongly with her as a morose, depressed, anxiety-ridden, quite possibly neurospicy, bisexual, self-loathing individual who was convinced that everyone hated her. Plus, she was a black cat. Black cats are my favorite animal of all, so that was a plus in her favor, too. In addition, the relationships were so well drawn in the game, they hit me hard.

I played it through three times, and I fell in love more with the game with each playthrough. This game was genius in the way it opened up story-wise. Depending on how you play it, you could be given a story that while rich, was just a narrow strip of what the game had to offer.

I have not seen another game like it, quite honestly. And I have not had another game hit me as hard as this one did. I have not felt seen by a game like I have with this one. I full-on ugly sobbed while playing it, and I felt it deep to my bones. Not only did the game capture the personality of Mae perfectly, it showed how bleak it was in rust town, USA, how hopeless it can feel, what good friendships you can build, and how families can be fractious and loving at the same time. I related to so much of this game, I have it at number one of my favorite non-FromSoft games of all time. And it’s not even close. I have thought about going back to it, but I think it’s better to leave it as a very fond memory.


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What ten games define me

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There’s a meme going around in Instagram (I saw it on a video, not on Insta itself) about posting an image of you in a book author pose surrounded by the ten games you’ve played that you would tell people if you wanted them to get to know you. It’s emphatically not a list of your ten favorite games, but the ten games that define you. I was intrigued by the idea because I would have thought they were one and the same. The more I thought about it, though, thne more I understood the difference.

I decided to make my own list, and I think there are a few really surprising choices on the list. Several are what you would expect, and then there are a few that are just what they are. I’ll explain that more when I get to them. These are in no particular order. They might be loosely chronological, but maybe not. We’ll see!

1. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari). When I was a teenager, my parents would drag my brother and me to various Taiwanese events that went on for hours. It didn’t help that they NEVER started on time, so that added an hour to the wait.

The events were often at the local uni student union. In the basement was a bowling alley with a few arcade games. One of them was Ms. Pac-Man, and I would play it for hours to pass the thime. It was a comfort game, plus it planted the idea in the back of my brain that the protag of a video game could be a woman. Or at least female-coded. Yes it was just Pac-Man with a bow, but still! It was also a beacon of light during a very dark period of my life, and I will always appreciate it for that.

2. Pitfall! (Activision).  This was the first video game I played. Well, among the first video games I played and my favorite. We had an Atari, and I would play this over and over. This game really scratched the itch that my neurospicy brain has in that playing it over and over again soothed the savage beast within. I have fond memories of playing this with my brother when I was a preteen–one of the only pleasant memories I had as a child.

3. Torchlight (Runic Games). During my twenties and early-to-mid thirties, I only played casual games. I loved them, but I wanted to spread my wings. I asked my new buddy, Ian, what game he would recommend. He thought about it and said I might like a new game called Torchlight. I booted it up, saw that there was a choice of three characters. One of them was a woman who looked vaguely Asian, and the other two were dudes. I immediately chose the woman because that’s always going to appeal to me more. She was the ranged class, which also suited me. and I had a pet cat who took items to town for me, sold them, and brought me back the money.


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