gamerdad According to my trusty Playstation App I have logged about twenty hours into this slash-em-up romp in the last week.

I mention it because I mentioned playing this game to LM on the weekend and his eyes got real big and he told me a short cautionary tale about a friend of his who sunk literally thousands of hours in Diablo games of the past and how it was a black hole of attention grabbing and that I should be careful and for gosh sake, brad, stick to Baldurs Gate, dammit.

But I’m making progress, I argued.

And I am. I am playing as a whirlwind barbarian who blurs through enemies with abandon and I’ve been fulfilling all the little side quests and unlocking new skills and levelling up well into the mid-thirties all while I narrow in on completing Act I of the quest story line.

But I get it. Everything is so incremental and there is almost no grind. I mean it’s all grind, but the grind rewards you with a fresh shot of endorphins every couple of minutes. You just keep cooler better stuff and mightier skills and bigger numbers and there is a ceaseless motivation to just keep thrashing about and progressing. In fact, the game seems to know this giving you new quests that sometimes just happen as you stroll by… none of this clicking and choosing, heck, it’s more like hey you, follow me and kill these demons.

So I progress. And I unlock. And the game goes on.

gamerdad When I play games like Diablo IV I often need to take a beat and try to remind myself that these games are designed for teenagers. Sure, we lifetime gamers in our 40s still dive into big titles like this and get lost in the fantasy of bashing baddies with our big fantasy weapons, but really, they are narratively simple for a reason.

I’ve been mildly surprised by D4 tho.

I mean, yeah, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between the main story quests and the side-questing (to grow my character) but for a brute force slugfest, the story is actually pretty solid.

Too, the side quests are anything but raw fetch quests. There are entangled narrative arcs and plots with reputational impacts. You are not just running off to find random object X but rather you are, say, replacing objects that got broken in previous quests to help characters with questionable motives, if you so choose.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying games designed for kids can’t be narratively interesting, but often the plot is there as much to force skill grinding or whatever as it is to tell s an actually interesting story.

Heck, sure… maybe D4 isn’t gonna win any writing awards. But it has been pleasantly and surprisingly compelling to pay attention to the story in this one.

gamerdad All slay and no play makes Brad a dull guy… or so it goes that my forays into playing a bunch of RPG titles should occasionally give way to paying some quality time to my little Stardew Valley farm. By which I mean, I’ve now logged enough hours in this lifestyle sim (yet again!) to make it to year two. You Stardewheads know what that means, right?

As it goes, I’ve made some serious progress on a lot of serious things. I have a mere handful of items to clean up in the Community Centre quest, bottomed out the mine, I’ve got all my skills to a solid 5 at minimum, and I’ve apparently got at least two digital girlfriends. (Don’t tell my real world wife! Or whatever.)

According to the in-game clock either a whole year has passed… or about twenty-six hours. Yikes!

I will plead my case that this game is acting as somewhat of an inspiration for my own coding adventures. I’ve been working on a game that not only aesthetically overlaps with Stardew Valley but takes some of the higher concepts from this title, like passing days, npc interactions, and inventory management. I plead such a case only to suggest that spending some time back in Stardew Valley has been more than a way to pass some time waiting for the phone to ring or for my body to recover from a cold, it can be suggested that I’m “researching” game design… and I’d only be a tiny bit exaggerating to suggest that. I actually kind of am.

Of course, that doesn’t also mean I haven’t been enjoying my return visit, particularly so since I have a to-do list in my head to power through some of the more grinding tasks and challenges. I don’t actually know if it has helped, but I feel more productive. And after all, this game is all about the feels, ain’t it?

gamerdad I am distracted by a dearth of games. Another title I’d been eying for a couple years showed up on one of those too good to ignore massive discount sales and, well…

I was gambling on Diablo. I had dabbled in this game back with the original literally decades ago and knew I had a vibe for action RPG games. The whole mindlessly hacking through waves of enemies and blurring through chaos of it all can be very much its own kind of flow state game where there is almost no thought beyond taking the next few steps, healing, and continuing the battle.

It’s not for everyone, but it turns out (particularly because I’m a wee bit sick and confined to the couch this week) that I can sink six or seven hours into this game and not even blink.

The game looks a lot like Baldur’s Gate, another of those recently acquired wishlist games, but the play style is almost the polar opposite. Wherein BG3 one is strategically conducting battle in turn based order, planning each move with precision and care lest the a careless use of finite action point sour the strategy and doom the fight to failure, D4 is a tank of button mashing, brute bashing and raw force. There is strategy, of course, but it as much about building a powerful character that can take lots of hits and deliver devastating attacks BEFORE one goes out to fight. BG3 is chess, D4 is football.

D4 is also a sinkhole for my attention. I’m not sure what else or how often I will post about a game that is essentially bludgeoning through a world map, but too, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be another one of those games I was pining to play and then got bored with two hours in. It hasn’t been. I can see this becoming a new mild obsession, actually. I’m only on my first build and at level 22. Just wait until things get serious, huh?

gamerdad A double screenshot day on the puzzle app, first with a rare sub-20 second time on my crossword mini and second because I’ve pulled a 42 day win streak on the quartiles challenge. And yeah, the times on those screenshots are am.

gamerdad There is always so much to do in this game, that to try and express an approach as progress is not a clear translation to make.

It is fall of my first year in this playthrough of Stardew Valley, which means that (and since I’ve played it a half dozen times before) I have made some solid gains on the community centre, levelled up a bunch of skills, nearly found my way to the bottom level of the mine, and have been stashing a respectable hoard of gold star vegetables for the harvest festival in a couple of days.

What I have definitely neglected this time around has been building strong relationships in the community (I’ve been hoarding all my gifts to sell for gold) and fishing. I will, as a side note, say that on the PS5 fishing suuuuuucks. I dunno if the controller is not responsive enough or I’m just doing something wrong, but it’s fall and I can count the number of fish I’ve actually caught on my fingers and as a single digit percentage of my attempts. I mean, it’s supposed to be a little tricky, but the curve is just off on consoles. Or something. Either way, I’ve been neglecting it.

My leaning back into this game has left me with a bit of self-reflective angst, tho. I mean, I’ve logged hundred of hours in this silly cozy game over the last decade, so on the one hand you might consider that its a familiar retreat. On the other, you’d assume I’d seen enough of it. It troubles me because I had Baldur’s Gate on my wishlist for nearly three years and finally bought it last month and… well, I logged about a dozen hours in that and started playing Stardew Valley again. What gives?

I think the disconnect I’m feeling is that cozy aspect. BG3 is an adventure game that requires thought and planning and strategy and attention to a story. SDV is just me chopping trees and planting vegetables and running around the #8bit landscape looking for berries.

In other words, I think my choice of game probably says more about my mental state and ability to focus than anything about the games themselves.

Autumn tends to be a time of reflection for me. My birthday is in autumn, for a start, which always makes me mushy about the passage of time. But autumn is also one of those clearcut seasons when the weather switches so dramatically. In fact it might be the most clear cut. Winter is winter and summer is summer, and spring is always a slow gradual melt and blossoming of the world, but autumn? Things just turn yellow and die and one day it’s freaking cold outside, snowing, and miserable and you need to dig your jacket out of the cupboard. Or you need to settle into a cozy video game. Take your pick.

gamerdad I only post this to note that my daily dose of #crossword puzzle had this clue… in 2025.

Yeah. 2025!

Console and gaming giant #nintendo has probably not considered the barely limping along as little more than a game studio #sega with some licensable IP a rival in two decades.

#youknowyoureoldwhen an outdated crossword clue still somehow makes a little sense, but still…

gamerdad Stardew Valley is syncing up nicely as a kind of comfort game for me lately: turn off my brain and click on stuff, y’know?

I mean, to start maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the seasons happened to line up just nicely, I guess, what with summer just ending here in the real world and me running around for an hour in Stardew Valley cleaning up the last few days of the same there.

My focus on this playthru (and emphasis on the THIS because I have played this game something like eight times on as many platforms) has been mostly twofold: there are a lot of new hidden features, areas, and other additions that have come out in the updates in the three or four years since I last seriously played, and of course, once again trying to unlock the thing I covet the most.. the greenhouse.

I have made progress on both, but of course, only a mere two seasons into the game calendar it is pretty much impossible to say that I have done much besides checkbox the easy stuff and start to formulate the concept of thinking about a plan to get the hard stuff.

One thing I will admit I have not focussed on as much as I normally do is farming. The heart of this game is planting a clever little farm and getting all the plants growing and making a buttload of money from hot peppers or something. I have not prioritized that. My farming vibe is just not there this time, odd considering that earlier this past spring and summer I logged a solid century in Farming Simulator. Maybe little guy with watering can isn’t scratching the farming itch the same way as a big green tractor simulator, huh?

Alas, I season and vibe aside, I only really have been dabbling in this game only in as much as it is the right kind of gem to play while listening to a podcast or an audiobook, half engrossed on a quiet evening and to get away from less wholesome (ahem…politics) content on my screen. And I mean no slight to the dialog either… I have read that book multiple times already. Comfort gaming, to be sure.

gamerdad I am glad I played Divinity Original Sin 2 before diving into the world of Baldur’s Gate. The heritage of the latter is evident in vibe of the game and having cut my proverbial teeth on DOS2, died a thousand pointless deaths trying to understand the mechanics of turn-based strategy, I have jumped into BG3 with a ton more confidence.

Having cleared what seems to be the prologue and jumped into the first act of the game, I have been partaking in a play style that has me feeling slightly as though I’m doing something wrong. See, my problem, and it really is a me-problem, is that I am not and have never been adverse to watching a video about a game here and there. I grew up in the era of sparse video gamer information, the trickle that there was coming from rare magazines or that one edge gamer show on cable tv. So, watching those ‘8 things I wish I knew…” clickbait videos to give myself a few nudges is not something I’ve ever shied away from. But all that said, many of those videos seem to subtly imply that there is a ‘right’ way to play BG3, a path I should be taking, a choice I should be making, and I’ve long since deviated and gone off on some other side quest that rarely jives with what those hinty videos are suggesting. So, while the truest metric of a good game is holding true for me (I’m having a good time) there is a little voice in my head going ‘that’s not what the video was doing’ and in a world like that of BG3 that leaves a lot of things on the table.

I’m only about six hours in, however, with about nine hours of play on my log. That right there should tell you how many times I’ve needed to reload and play a lost battle. Or, in what is probably my best head-slap story, I encountered the little goblin prisoner and immediately freed her and got attacked shortly thereafter. So I went and checked the wisdom of the internet and realized there was a back route out of the prison I was supposed to have taken. Duh. Retried that, and made it all the way through the maze of traps and battles to realize I didn’t have the prisoner. Did she die? Nope. In my hurry to follow what I’d read online, I’d skipped a step—actually talking to the prisoner after I freed her so that she would follow me. I went back to the prison and she was just standing there waiting to be led out through that same maze. Following a guide online might help you get ahead, but when you’re baking a chocolate chip cookie recipe from the internet, don’t forget to add the chocolate chips. [read more...]

gamerdad I finally bought it. Heck, it’s been on my wish list since it released a couple years back, but what with not working much and knowing it would likely consume me, I held off and waited for a good sale.

A mediocre sale was the next best bet.

It took two hours to install, what it being 100GB or so, but then there it was and I loaded up the game for the first time and sat there wondering which of the many paths to take. Character? Difficulty? Just a couple of the more obvious choices before the game-proper even began.

I recalled from playing Divinity Original Sin 2 that Larian games have a lot of threaded narratives and the game you get can change a bit based on early choices. I guess that’s what makes it replayable, huh?

There was no sense in dawdling tho, so I just jumped in and started. I can’t even really tell you what I picked besides mostly sticking with the default options. When I get some in-game time on the clock maybe I’ll know better for a second play thru. But for now, vanilla it is.

To be sure, a couple hours into it I’m far from an expert able to write with any depth on what I see is obviously enormous depth in this game. I’ve kept my ear to the ground these last couple years, reading write ups and listening to podcasts, so I have a share of third hand info that not only helped me make the decision to buy it and play it, but helped avoid some of that first wave overwhelmingness that I suspect wild come to anyone just jumping in completely cold.

Stay tuned.

gamerdad My physical copy of Civilization VII showed up via a postman who made me sign for it and everything. Woah! Haven’t done that in a while. How apropos for a history game huh?

I did what I always do with new games. I have been avoiding too many spoilers or videos about “things you should know before you play” and just trying to sink into it as the devs intended. Raw and unfiltered.

If it seems as though I’m making too big of a deal, recall that I’ve played every edition of this series and another new one kinda is a big deal.

So there it is. Take seven? The game as I understand it so far has broken away from some of the expected conventions of the predecessors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I enjoyed six but there was a simultaneously a complexity in the game play and a lack of nuance in the world building that could be a little jarring at times. I found myself frequently customizing games to ignore certain mechanics or aspects. For example, the whole religions thing—which seems to be absent in seven from what I’ve played so far?—is something that I would ignore or turn off as a win condition in six. I just wasn’t jiving the whole religious imperialism thing.

One thing I really like so far in seven is the new city settlement aspect. It always struck me as kind of unrealistic that settlers would just go off and found a whole new city with loyalty to the whole central leader thing—and of course it could be easily gamed to spam the world with little colonies. In seven it seems like your settlers spin off more of a kind of satellite town that needs to reach a certain potential before it can self govern. So you build these little future-cities that need resources and protection from the actual cities and it makes it a little more strategic in the way that you do the expansion of empire thing.

Also, I should note, that I’ve so far only played the first age. The game is now parcelled out into Ages with different goals for each. Some folks have been complaining that this breaks the continuity of a spanning empire, but from what I’ve seen having merely but dipped my toe into the Exploration Age is that it is probably more nuanced than that. Hopefully in a good way.

All that said, I am open to a new experience. I know some folks like to grumble when a beloved franchise tries something new. But the reality is that I still have Civ VI installed on a couple devices if I really don’t like VII. Designing new games is about taking risks, after all, and when evolving a series like Civilization it seems like there is vast opportunity to try new ideas in this vast and complex simulator.

Plus, you can’t please everyone.

gamerdad I did the most gamer dad thing ever, emphasis on the dad. I ordered a copy of Civilization VII with my airline points.

And it’s not that I’d given up on Civilization VI, but if you notice the dates on my recent posting you will also notice that I haven’t been gaming much at all lately. In fact I’ve had my head down MAKING a game, writing code and making art and putting together bits of narrative dialogue—and not playing much of anything at all.

So, that I had not played Civ 6 in a few months was not surprising. Given that I have a shipping notice for the next edition of this classic series and it should be in my hands by mid-week, I figured I’d take one last stab at the one that is currently installed on my machine. Either this will be a comparative analysis in the making, or as the next edition rolls onto my console I won’t have much incentive to play the old one.

Reviews, I acknowledge, have been mixed about 7, but with these epic long-running series one needs to weigh the reviews against the reality that a lot of gamers like what they like and as much as they clamber for innovate things, what they really want is the same thing with shinier graphics. My understanding is that VII is not that. It leans into the innovative. Any my thoughts on that matter are simply that if I was averse to new things I wouldn’t be a 48 year old gamer dad, now would I?

If nothing else, playing through a couple hours of VI reminded me that I could use a fresh coat of paint on the gameplay and the soundtracks and the narration, because as much as I like Sean Bean hearing him read the same bit of quotation about archery for the eighty-seventh time is starting to wear.