I'm really trying to play more stuff but Minecraft has my soul at the moment. Mark and I are just playing it like there was no other game in the world. What can I do? It's endlessly interesting. However, I did squeeze in one other game this weekend.
Spirit Farer: A game that just came out on Xbox Game Pass I thought I'd give a try. I really love the 2D graphics. Very colorful and detailed like an artsy cartoon. Good animation too. Not stiff and artificial but pretty detailed. Your character can hug one of the guests on her boat and the sense of weight to the characters is palpable. I like the gameplay. You run a ship on a spiritual ocean catering to the dead in their journey to the afterlife. You almost literally cater to them by making their food. You can build things on the ship to grow food, house guests and cook food among other things. Then you travel from island to island on various missions, leaving the boat to talk to NPCs and buy supplies and upgrade your ship. I'm really digging it but I didn't have a lot of time with it today because that darn Minecraft and the lure of social play with a friend of mine. So onto that.
Minecraft: A lot of Minecraft has been played by myself and my friend the last few weeks. A new update and achievements got us back into it and now it's like a obsession. So many worlds have been spawned and so many stories have happened within both survival and creative mode that I don't know where to start. Often it ends with a death and a frustration over losing level progression or materials. I feel like the game has gotten harder in the last few years. We used to play survival mode and get to the end dragon fairly regularly. Now it seems like it would take such a long time it's not worth it. Or, I try and get exhausted going for it. Certain resources have been placed farther away and it's just arduous finding them. I search for a meaningful session that lasts a few days at most. Seems like I have to play for months to get to where I'd like to be in the game these days.
But, that being said, there are still fun moments. I discovered how to grow the number of villagers. We got a bit carried away with it in one world and made just dozens of villagers and got to trade with every type. I refined my search for diamonds and got more efficient at it. We've fought off several Illiger assaults and won - always a fun challenge. I experimented with mining with TNT - not a very efficient way to do it I found out. I tried various patterns of mining in order to minimize the amount of digging and maximize the yield. In the end it's still random what appears, but you can up the odds by doing certain things. And I built a lot of different buildings, making wizard towers, barracks, and scouting platforms.
There's always something new to find out in Minecraft. I watched a youtube video summarizing a bunch of neat tricks that made me realize I hadn't even scratched the surface of what you can do. People make crazy machines to do all sorts of things. I can't understand how they work but people have been studying the game for a decade or more now, so it makes sense. I just feel like I'm still puttering around enchanting items and haven't done anything truly complex in the game. It's all for fun though. I'm not too interested in studying every aspect of it.
Well, such was the last few weekends. Psychonauts 2 has come out and I haven't touched it yet. What's up with that?
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