May Play 2023
Writing
Indiegames
We finished Mr. Saitou on stream recently and I’m so glad it was more light-hearted than Rakuen was. As much as I really enjoyed my time with Rakuen there were specific stories that really hit home more than the others, sending me to tears. A good cry is cathartic and important but crying for the sake of crying may not be the kind of game experience I’m looking for. I’ll make sure to make some time to write out my thoughts on this on Ko-fi soon now that I’ve played both!
Toge Productions was kind and provided a key for Coffee Talk Episode 2 and also connected with me to do a special written interview on the new episode. We got to collaborate with them on St. Jude for May and I’m grateful to have made the connection with their head of marketing to dig more into Coffee Talk.
In case you missed it, I covered my soft thoughts on Ambition: A Minuet in Power and discussed aspects of audio design, historical reference and fancy parties.
Indie World Showcase revealed exciting news but I’m most excited about Quilts and Cats of Calico, Paper Trail, Mineko’s Night Market, and Oxenfree 2! We played the demos of Calico and Paper Trail during Steam Puzzle Fest, which raised the excitement levels for their full releases this year. A July release for Oxenfree 2 also means we get to enjoy the Halloween vibes early, which I’m always down for.
Boardgames
I’ve got a ton of games that just showed up in the mail for my review, namely Oros, Numbsters, and Cousins’ War. Personally though I’m most excited for a game that I late pledged on Kickstarter called Darwin’s Journey which should be a good brain burner and co-designed by my favorite board game designer, Simone Luciani. For those of you who aren’t familiar with my personal taste in board games I’ll really play anything that can be fun but prefer very complex strategy games if I have to prioritize. Simone makes wonderful engine builders as well, though I’m not entirely sure if that will be built into this game as I have kept away from any details (even those on the campaign site).
I’ve also been playing quite a few games on BoardGameArena: Great Western Trail, Nippon, Gaia Project, Obsession, It’s a Wonderful World, Hardback, and Gizmos have all hit the virtual table lately. Nippon was new to me and I struggled my way through that one with a friend, I’ll have to read the rulebook more thoroughly before I try it again! Normally I can just stumble my way through a new game on the platform since it has rails but I don’t think even with rails that I made the right decisions.
Fiction
While I wait on final feedback from my best friend on the novel from last year’s NaNoWriMo, I’ve been working on what I think will end up being a science fiction novella. I’m not really interested in doing a lot of research nor writing the expected 90k or more for a full science fiction novel, and my vision for the story doesn’t involve a lot of twists and turns.
Video
Streaming
We finished the base game of Breath of the Wild, which makes me very much interested in checking out the retro games perhaps on my own time. Many people in the community have shared their favorites in the series, including my partner, so I feel like I can get a broader feel of Zelda games if I do go back in time. I have Tears of the Kingdom on preorder and we will be streaming it the Saturday it comes out, if not the day of (Friday). We’ll have to see!
I tried working through more of Tchia but we’re getting into some serious missions that changed the vibe for me, so I unfortunately won’t be bringing it back to stream. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game but it’s not what I’m looking for in terms of a live experience. I’m making a list of games that didn’t feel comfortable for me as a streamer that will perhaps be recorded for Youtube, though! Coffee Talk 2 on Sundays is wonderful and another exercise for my voice acting skills, so we’ll definitely be finishing this on stream and I am loving the story so far. The main message seems to be what happens when you care too much about what people think, which is timely and relevant to what I’m trying to do with my content.
Just for the month of May (during St. Jude fundraising), expect to see Tears of the Kingdom, Terra Nil, Thriving City: Song, and Potion Craft. I’m still waiting on the console release for Mail Time, hopefully that follows soon for our Sunday streams but if not, we have Carto to fall back on. In addition to full games, I’ll be playing through some demos for Ludonarracon on the channel, like Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, Goodbye Volcano High, and Dordogne.
Short Form
It’s odd to be a comfy space in short format content, and I’m not even sure if that's what hits so haven't made anything new lately. Perhaps St Jude incentives will give us some new moments to share :)
Personal
Currently Playing
I’m back to Cozy Grove again, things have been zapping my energy lately so not much left to play games that have high stakes for Switch. At some point I’ll get back to Octopath Traveler II but it’s a lot of calculating that doesn’t match my energy levels. If I’m on desktop, Garden Galaxy’s serotonin hits with their mystery box mechanics have been a boost. Not only is the music soothing but the animations are also relaxing for an overall spa-like gaming experience.
In general I’m not really into high stakes games right now, those assume that you have any mental thinking or computing power left to give (which I don’t). Let’s hope this time of rest leads us to more exciting future eras!
IRL
We’ve been watching quite a few movies lately as being equipped with masks and portable air filter in hand have been doing the trick for protection. Polite Society was incredible, it reminded me a lot of what I liked from Ms. Marvel and had a heartwarming but action-packed story. All of the clothes and set design was gorgeous and really taught me a lot about a culture different than mine (but similar in familial misunderstandings and the like). The Super Mario Bros movie was also a goofy time, with the voice acting not as bad as I had anticipated but really the star of the show was Jack Black as Bowser. I won’t share much more than this but if you set your expectations accordingly it was quite enjoyable. Later on in the month we did a late night showing of Dungeons & Dragons with the theater mostly all to ourselves (one couple snuck in last minute though, boooo), it was a wild ride and enjoyable that the writing included easter eggs for long-time fans.
For the first time ever we tried out a pay-per-view at-home experience by watching Creator Clash, rooting for Marisha Ray and Alanah Pearce. There were so many creators from across platforms but I honestly did not recognize most of them. I had also never really watched boxing in any capacity and I found myself holding my breath with worry! Luckily they all trained and thus it wasn’t an ugly brawl, and the referees knew when to call it so no one seemed seriously injured. I would definitely watch this event again in the future as it takes a lot of courage to do this even if it is for charity.
Picture of the Month
My partner and I saved up to go to our next three-Michelin star experience at Benu, even the simple butter with honey for bread was gorgeous!
Feel free to reply directly to this email to let me know your thoughts, or perhaps any content that you'd like to see or questions you might have. Otherwise, sending you all my blooming Spring joy for the month and I look forward to writing to you in June!