Realistic Expectations

I had an interesting ritual of acting like I was going to start writing again, and then not doing it. At this point, I haven't written since November of last year.

so many missed caturdays

I acted like I was going to hype up some Dungeons and Dragons posts, and then I never wrote them. Not sure where my motivation went, but I've been playing a new campaign lately and we're already, like, eight play sessions in, and I obviously haven't written about it at all.

I've been building in Cleft of Dimensions, which if you're wondering about that you can just look at the next post down since that was the last thing I wrote about in November, of last year. I've built two areas and will be starting a new one tomorrow or Monday, based on Sunsnug Isle in MH4U. My first area was based on Animal Crossing (no single one in particular) and my second one was actually based on Spirited Away, the 2001 Miyazaki film. My second one was three times as large as my first one, which was quite tough but I pulled through.

it's about 75% source accurate with some personal additions and deviations

Pascal the Builder

Featuring once again, that weird text based game, Cleft of Dimensions.

I was "hired" as a builder, which is a low tier staff member who creates new areas. I say "hired" because I definitely am not being paid.

Staff members are called immortals, which is slightly fitting as they actually can't be killed, at least under normal circumstances.

I have been a very busy beaver, and I built an area in the game based off of Animal Crossing.

I meant to post about this sooner, and maybe do some updates regularly because of it, but frankly there isn't that much to say about the actual process. I've been entirely engrossed in this for almost two weeks, now. It's really been my main focus, but even the higher ups are impressed with how quickly I put it together.

Text Based Blog Post

I will write about that DnD session like I promised. Today is not the day I do that, however.

Today I'm playing Cleft of Dimensions, again.

yeah this one

I never really get tired of CoD (which obviously doesn't stand for Call of Duty in this context), but I just end up playing something else and forgetting about it for awhile. Then I go back to it and play it until something else comes up.

The Banished Country

I've written before about Banished, and I'm sure you're wondering "what else can you even attempt to write about this game?" The game is addictive and I've put many, many hours into it, but it's true - there isn't too much to say about it.

"this game is fun 10/10"

The game is a city builder, but it has some distinct differences that make it stand out. You aren't technically "the mayor" or monarch, as there's no treasury or currency or ultimate Collectible Thing that you aim to accumulate.

CC added a governor, but he's a randomly appointed townsperson

All the resources are given to the town itself for use by the populous to survive and to expand. Indeed, other than a couple achievements, you are given no actual distinct goals... at all.

This is one of two of the main criticisms I've seen from people who dislike the game - the other, funnily enough, being that the game has a steep learning curve. Apparently, you won't like Banished if you need to be told what to do, how to do it, when and where to do it, and when you're done doing it. As I've said before, I don't agree that you need to be told what your goal should be in order to enjoy this game.

here is what you do: build the town

But, I've already written about that and I try not to be too repetitive between blog posts.

The Banished Colonial Charters

Banished is a great game that I haven't played in awhile. I wrote about it and why it's amazing despite its supposed flaws a couple months ago. A friend told me that he's been playing Banished while waiting for Warlords to come to an end, and that there was so much new stuff for him to do because of this mystical colonial charter mod.

I had looked into their mods last time I played, which was around when I wrote about it, but it looked like they weren't actually in service yet. They finally came out and let me tell you, this one is crazy.

The colonial charters mod adds so much stuff. It has its own website. From the moment I loaded the game with the mod enabled, I could tell there was going to be an overload of new things to understand.

what's CC Medium- oh holy crap what even is this

More Terraria!

I've been binging on Terraria (again). There are two main, general idea aspects about Terraria that I really like. The first one is building houses and creating things.

uh, still a work in progress

The second one is exploring and fighting monsters and bosses.

and riding bees while being menacing toward penguins

Today, I'm gonna go on and on about the first one. My current baby world is just my creative hub where I retire to after creating new worlds, plunging them into chaos, murdering all of their inhabitants, and pillaging all their resources. I take my exploring, monster fighting, death machine character, and he becomes a peaceful house builder who frets over little details and wonder which kind of door he should use for each room.

Currently, I'm putting detail work into a few key areas.

The Story This Season

I'm a huge fan of Harvest Moon and similar farming 'simulation/role playing' games. My favorite was A Wonderful Life on the Gamecube, a close second would be Runefactory 4 for the 3DS. Story of Seasons is a newer release from Marvelous/XSEED for the 3DS - Natsume owns the 'Harvest Moon' name, so they were unable to run with that trademark and took a new turn. About a month after Story of Seasons came out, I got it and... well... I kind of don't like it.

yeah yeah go ahead and be upset

Now, I'm pretty alone here - and it really bothers me that I don't like it. I want to like it. The graphics are fine, the mechanics are fine, they have all the same attributes that previous games had, and a bunch of cool new stuff! Well, it would be cool I guess, if I could actually experience it.

Please note, tons of plot and gameplay will be revealed in this post, i.e. spoilers.

Banished

Banished is a city builder designed by Shining Rock Software, which misleadingly is just one stellar dude, Luke Hodorowicz. It was released on February 18th in 2014, but it's still being tweaked and updated regularly. It's just now starting to have player-created mod content.

I got the game the day after it was released, played it for several days straight, and frequently go back to it. This is one of my favorite games, but some people give it flak for a couple reasons. This post is not really a review (I am not even really a reviewer, so get that out of your head), but rather me expressing my (correct) opinions on some controversial gameplay and design within Banished.

The game has almost zero plot so you couldn't really say there are any spoilers, though gameplay and mechanics will be discussed within this post.

Caution: Animal Crossing

I recently got back into Animal Crossing: New Leaf. It was sort of an accident. I've been playing MH4U, which is basically the opposite of AC, so I'm not sure what happened.

monster hunting

butterfly hunting

If you've never played Animal Crossing, the wiki page sums the game series up pretty well...

Animal Crossing is a community simulation video game series developed and published by Nintendo, in which the human player lives in a village inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, carrying out various activities.

Yeah... a real action packed game.

AC:NL was released in 2013, which is when I got it, and I was super happy with it, especially considering I actually kinda really disliked the AC that was released for the Wii. I hadn't played it since forever, so I was hesitant to even start up the game again considering your town decays while you don't play. However, when I started it up, my town was missing entirely. My save file was gone. Well, easy way out I suppose - so I started a new town.

AFK Killing Monsters

hunting ft. monsters

I didn't post yesterday - I didn't even turn on my computer - because I was binging on MH4U. It just came out for 3DS a few days ago in the US.

Monster Hunter is a game where you fight... monsters. After the first few quests, which are just simple introductory fluff, you fight increasingly tougher monsters as you progress through the storyline.

MH is also known for its online grouping, where you team up with up to four people to fight monsters together. Fighting monsters together is basically the staple of any online community.
While playing online, or solo but just doing the same quests, you can raise your hunter rank and fight more and stronger monsters.

Obviously, being an online community, people will judge you based on your hunter rank and other people will whine because they're being judged by their hunter rank. Personally, I like playing through the storyline. Not only is it incredibly advantageous to go through the storyline, since only single player mode unlocks all the cool stuff, but the story telling is good.

There are just a slight few mild spoilers up ahead, so go away if you plan on playing the game and want to be surprised by what kinds of things you unlock during the single player storyline.

Grandpa Multi-User Dungeon

Before there were MMOs, there were MUDs. An older guildmate of mine actually told me that MMOs were originally referred to as "graphical MUDs". . .

Now I don't know how true that is, but MUDs are text based games where you explore vast and mysterious worlds, but just, like, with words.

they're very intense

There are a lot of them, but I've been playing one in particular that's very well made and maintained, Cleft of Dimensions.