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Game Thoughts: Citizen Sleeper

I bought Citizen Sleeper during a recent Steam sale -- I wasn't actually intending on doing a full playthrough, but wanted to check it out since it had some good reviews.

I subsequently lost 3 nights of sleep to the game's ingenious game loop and gorgeous character portraits. This game is fantastic.

The game plays out as half-visual novel (most of the "stuff" that happens just happens in text form) and half progress-quest where you literally just make some progress bars count up while others count down automatically day over day.

And it works! The developers somehow trimmed all of the fat out of the typical roleplaying paradigm, distilling common game mechanics to their purest form -- after all, what is an RPG when you pull back the veneer? You'll find it is, in fact, simply doing actions to progress to the next story beat.

Everything's balanced out so that you're simultaneously trying to keep your character alive while progressing several story threads -- each action you take is resolved by consuming one of 5 dice rolled at the start of the day. The longer you go between topping up your character's meds, the less dice/actions you get per day, applying even more pressure.

In between the progress bars you dictate your character's future and the future of the station you're on. You are a "sleeper" -- a humanoid cyborg (there's more to it than that, but I'll gloss over the details) fleeing the company that owns you. You find yourself on The Eye, a station in political and technical flux, and must eke out a living or find a means of escaping.

I was so drawn into this story I couldn't put the game down. I fell in love with the characters (the excellent portraits help), their stories, and The Eye with all it's grit and problems. The progress bars stopped being progress bars and became storytelling mechanisms, incentives, panic-inducing countdowns to dire events.

I do have to say I'm very glad that I got the game late in its life, as if the game had ended at one of the endings offered to me through the main campaign I would have been very disappointed. Fortunately, the game currently comes with 3 expansions (Flux, Refuge, Purge) which provide an extremely satisfying ending that ties up much of the loose ends of the game.

I honestly don't know how they actually made it happen, but all the small choices I had made throughout the campaign and particular characters I had liked and interacted with all pieced together perfectly in the finale. I had tears rolling with the credits -- definitely what I expected from progress bars!

I won't be revisiting the game for a second playthrough because I'm completely satisfied with the ending I got in the first run. I will, however, be keeping an eagre eye on the upcoming sequel.

This game taught me a lot about making magic happen with very little, and I hope I can take those lessons with me into my own eventual works!

Book Thoughts: Ancillary Justice

I finished Ancillary Justice the other day, a Sci-Fi book that's been on my reading list since it snagged a Hugo back in 2014

The premise is fantastic -- the protagonist is a vengeful warship AI bound to a single body, but accustomed to several hundred (plus ship sensors and bio sensors on soldiers). On their journey they make some very human relationships.

For once I honestly have nothing to complain about with this one. It was smart, funny, empathetic and interesting. The author's storytelling and setup was great, the universe was compelling, the goals were clear once announced. The character development was also great, and the whole everyone-is-a-she thing definitely did some interesting things to reader perception.

I'm really happy where book one in the series ended and I've read that the later books are a little slow, so I may just treat this one as a one-off happily-ever-after and move to some other interesting items.

Highly recommended; that Hugo guy knows what he's doing when it comes to picking books.

Game Thoughts: Final Fantasy XV [INC]

I don't know how big of a Final Fantasy fan I technically am. On one hand, Final Fantasy 7-10 (and tactics) were a huge part of defining my childhood, and what set me on the course for being a lifelong videogame enjoyer. On the other hand, I haven't really enjoyed a Final Fantasy game since 10 with the exception of FF7R.

With Final Fantasy 16 on the horizon (far on the horizon as I don't think I want to buy a PS5), I thought it would be fun to take another stab at Final Fantasy 15, which I had previously played and quit around the point where you meet Dino-the-shitty-gem-quest-giver. (I hate Dino btw).

This time, I went in by first watching the movie as well as the Brotherhood anime -- both of which weren't great, but definitely added some nuance and backstory to the characters and setting. This had me more attached to our band of boys, but definitely could have just been stuff that was included in-game. I honestly would have loved some more story and character building in the game.

I tried really hard to like this title, and genuinely enjoyed the interactions and dynamics between the boys in the main party. They nailed that. The combat was also fairly fun and I generally liked playing in the presented world despite it being populated by only 16 non-generic characters, the rest being random faceless npcs or store clerks.

Unfortunately, the holes in the story were unacceptably bad. Now, I expect some unhinged incomprehensible shit to go down -- this is a Final Fantasy game -- but this was a pathetic showing that frequently threw me out of immersion so hard I got whiplash.

Game Thoughts: The House in Fata Morgana

I finally got to the end of The House in Fata Morgana on Friday; a widely celebrated visual novel about love and tragedy and a big ol' house with a witch.

It was a good visual novel with a pretty wild story that definitely cranks the tragedy (read: fucked-up-ness) to 11 while still keeping you attached to the main characters. I'd definitely recommend it to those into visual novels that want to avoid the harem/smutty titles that tend to crowd the space.

That said, it's a great visual novel, not absolutely not actual novel quality. Going into it I had unrealistic expectations of this being literature-grade writing based on the reviews, and it most certainly wasn't that. Despite the interesting threads and mysteries running through this story, it has a lot of dips in quality and questionable design decisions throughout.

Be forewarned that this is a 30+ hour long "game" that consists almost entirely of dialogue with no gameplay elements other than a handful of choices that either continue the story or terminate immediately with a bad ending. That is, there aren't any "branches" to be found in this tale.

If you're new to visual novels I definitely recommend starting with something like "The Nonary Games" or "Raging Loop" to get a feel for the medium before trying to swallow this one!

(note, expand post for detailed thoughts on game. Spoils basically everything, won't make sense if you haven't played)

Thoughts: Reclaiming Time

I sit here now after our first full week in the new apartment, sweating profusely as the building's AC won't be activated until May and we've had a handful of uncharacteristically hot days.

For nearly a month now I feel that I've accomplished nothing. Strangely, looking at how my has been spent I've actually accomplished quite a bit -- the move went well, I've been seeing friends, exploring the city with my dog and partner, building tools at work and by most metrics getting a lot of shit done... but the part of me I compartmentalize away and consider "mine" hasn't had much time to do stuff lately, and its the things I finish (books, games, projects) in that time that make me really feelaccomplished.

I think maybe it's strange that I don't include partner activities or social hangouts part of "my" time, as these are often times spent doing things I want to do with people I love to do stuff with. I think there's just a special fulfillment that comes from doing a thing entirely of your own will to satisfy an entirely personal desire: writing characters for a game I'll never make, playing a game from deep in my backlog, practicing drawing, reading detailed tutorials/articles on shit I'll probably never need to know.

The part that sucks about this is I've had lots of opportunity for my own time lately, but my head's just been distracted this past month. The spans of time I could have claimed were instead drained by social media and watching mindless youtube shorts. I've been turning off instead of taking the reins and doing shit.

Even walking, --an activity I usually categorize as "my" time since I can dig into audiobooks -- hasn't been mine lately, as background process of 'settling in' has been eating up all available bandwidth.

I've caught myself now, though, and am finally feeling somewhat settled in to the new place. Pushing myself to sit down at my laptop and introspect (instead of doom-scrolling) is what I needed to reboot my head and see all the opportunities I've been missing to do my own thing.

With nothing planned for tomorrow, I think I'm going to try stealing the whole day.

Thoughts: Moving

Last weekend my partner and I went to take a look at a couple of apartments. Theoretically this was just to take a look at what kind of stuff was available, but we found something we really liked and pulled the trigger a whole month earlier than planned.

As a result, I'm in shambles. I'm the kind of person who tends to fret about details when stuff gets time-sensitive, so organizing a move and all of the timeboxed to-dos like purchasing cheques (10 day delivery time, really?), prepping deposits, hooking up utilities and planning a move are all things that aren't difficult but their time sensitivity turns me into a fidgety mess. The only thing that hits me worse is airports.

Of course, this fretting translates into reduced functionality at work, which pushes my deadlines and, in turn, increases anxiety. The vicious anxious cycle

These things have translated into falling off what was starting to be a successful diet (stress eating) and budding workout habit (replaced with pacing, which is at least still moving). I've also essentially abandoned my side projects for the time being as I need to spend the creative focus I still have on keeping pace with work stuff.

And so, I think, it is time to step back and take a breath. Write a little blog post to help me orient myself and align my expectations with the coming changes to lifestyle. Talk myself out of the panic, if you will.

With the move I will transition once again to a vagabond lifestyle, existing half of the time with my partner in our new apartment, and half the time with my family in my quiet-town home close to my work. This will translate to more time in transit, which is an excellent time to focus on more audiobooks. In the past this travel time (when not jammed with traffic) was some of my favorite alone time to really dig in to good books, so I'll be getting that back.

Our increased rent and more expensive city lifestyle is going to translate into less money for my more costly hobbies. Video game collecting, trading card games, and purchasing obscenely expensive pens and inks are probably all out for the forseeable future. However, in the last few years I've established a very large backlog of both retro and modern games, and a very robust collection of fancy pens, papers, and inks. Now I've got more incentive to play all the games I've already got and spend more time writing with the pens and inks I love so much.

The stress I'm currently going through is preventing me from focusing on my game-making hobby and I'm not finding joy in it currently. I just end up pacing and playing games and ripping through time on youtube and social media sites. This, however, is a temporary state, and I will eventually settle and once again crave the satisfaction of making things. I should use this as an opportunity to get through more of my backlog. Read more books and play more games on my must-play list. Use this as an excuse to break out my retro handhelds and get to games I may never have made time for.

As for the diet? Fuck it I'll have time for that later. If I spend the next 3 weeks undoing the good I did in the last 3 so be it. The success I had was the proof I needed that I've "still got it" and can seriously and consistently cut back on the food and move more. I can pick up those pieces once I've re-established a comfortable rhythm.

And work I need to stress about less. Nothing is broken and I work in the public sector. My deadlines are to meet expectations, not profit margins, and the occasional lull in productivity can be forgiven by talking honestly with stakeholders.

So things aren't so bad. Life isn't over with this move, it's just changing. Just because I like the way things are now doesn't mean they won't be better after the change -- after all, where I am now is the result of just such a change in the past which I'm sure I was loathe to make at the time.

Book Thoughts: Vagabonds

I also finished the audiobook of Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang over the weekend; a story about a colonized and independent Mars experiencing growing pains. Big spoilers ahead.

Comic Thoughts: 20th Century Boys

I finished my read-through of 20th Century Boys (and 21st Century Boys) yesterday and sat pondering about what I'd just read for a good while. The story itself was very compelling, and the characters kept me coming back to the comic any time I had a spare moment; it's a fantastic piece of manga storytelling and character design... until the third act where everything falls apart. Full-on spoilers ahead.

Game Thoughts: Omori

I completed the "good" ending of OMORI last night -- that game was a ride. (spoilers ahead)

OMORI is a game about grief, both dealing with it and failing to deal with it. Without revealing too much of the story, the game takes place partially in the real world, and partially in "Headspace", a bubbly imaginary world the protagonist has built to reside in and hide from their suppressed memories and emotions. In Headspace you and your troupe of friends explores and plays and has adventures with many cartoonish characters, while the real world mostly progresses the story and character development and is populated many of the same (less-idealized versions) residents as Headspace.

While most of the "action" (read: rpg battles and puzzles and quests) take place in Headspace, the events that happen there are for the most part meaningless. While they occasionally mirror things in the real world, it's mostly fluff. This is on purpose: the whole reason Headspace exists is to escape from reality. At the start of the game I found myself impatient to get back to Headspace where things were nice and my characters were leveled up, but by the end I was impatient to get finished with Headspace stuff to see what happened in the real world.

The transition between the two worlds, and the occasional incursion of one into the other, is there OMORI gets dark. The truth that the protagonist is desperately trying to bury surfaces, and he's forced to face his past and his fears. This manifests in legitimately dread-inducing visuals and audio that really elevates the game to the fame it's rightfully gained.

The game makes use of a handful of jump-scares throughout, but they don't feel cheap, usually leaving you uneasily thinking "what the fuck did I just see?". Married with the slower and more deliberate horror sequences of the protagonist literally fighting their fears, the game manages to frequently drive a cold knife into your gut.

On the topic of gameplay, OMORI manages to bring both of its charm and dread to its battle system. While it's a fairly simple turn-based combat system with cute or silly enemies, the game adds in emotion manipulation to the core battle strategy. You can make enemies and allies Happy, Angry, or Sad, with each emotion having pros and cons and being able to stack (eg. Angry->Furious). The emotions form a rock-paper-scissors triangle, meaning it's to your benefit to manipulate enemy and party emotions to maximize damage output.

While this mechanic is neat as a fighting strategy tool, it also adds a really novel way for storytelling within the otherwise simple battles. Boss fights often directly leverage this, swinging their moods in story-appropriate ways. It also adds potential to surprise the player with scripted or otherwise inaccessible emotions.

I don't have much to complain about with this one. Some of the quests in the real world felt fairly pointless (not an achievement hunter), and the longer side-quests seemed awkwardly placed at a point in the game where the story was at a tipping point which threw off the pace. Besides that this was a great experience with both bright and cheery highlights and gut-wrenching depths. It really sets you up then knocks you down with surprises right through to the end.

Comic Thoughts: Land of the Lustrous

While my intent was to read more scifi novels this year I keep getting drawn into mangas before I can get attached to anything I'm reading. The latest of these was The Land of the Lustrous which was a completely random pick.

At 12 volumes the story feels mostly done, though I think there's some wiggle room in there if the authors want to stretch stuff out, but it was a very interesting read. What starts out at a cutesy almost sailor-moon-esq story involving agender (though very feminine) human-looking characters made of various gems quickly tuns into a story about forgetting one's self and one's purpose in the pursuit of goals.

I really enjoyed the series. At first I enjoyed the silliness tinged with dread when the "bad guys" showed up, but the otherwise simple characters got fairly messy as the story progressed and the protagonist gets straight-up ship-of-theseus'd and descends into questioning everything.

Super unique flavor in this one, and they even made an anime of it (albeit 3d anime), though I doubt a second season will be released.