PixlBit

I'm definitely feeling a farming frenzy coming on: glued to the screen, not moving for hours, barely aware of my surroundings, forgetting to eat. It's on the verge of unhealthy obsession, but I just laugh about it and pull myself away at the end of every "weekend" and get back to work.

Farm Together 2 - Part of it is that my friend and I are in a heated battle over farm level. He was a few levels ahead  this week, and I closed the gap and nearly passed him. He'll win in the end, I'm sure. He makes these gigantic farms, and I stick to smaller carefully managed plots. I play the way I like and try not to get too caught up in the competition. But it's fun to trash talk while we play. 

153 hours into it now and nearly level 120 on my farm. I have 30 plots of a possible 49 on this map. I discovered you can buy more maps and switch between them. I'm not sure I'll need a second 49 plots though. 

I've been enlarging fields as new plants, animals and fish become available. The landscape shaping tool is great help in enlarging pools of water and getting hills out of the way of crops. I don't really have an overall design aesthic other than trying to resist everything turning into total chaos. I carefully rearranged my flower beds and fish ponds so they show blocks of the different categories on the map for easy identification. I frequently dart from map to third-person view and warp from area to area as needs arise. The map marks quest related resources so you can get there quickly and harvest them. 

Overall this game does vear closely to being repetitive and just a grind, but there's plenty of room to optimize and think about how to do things more efficiently. And if I get a little bored sometimes, I just focus on aesthics and build a horse farm, island boat house, or decorate one of my homes. You get XP for doing this too, so there are no meaningless tasks.

Most of my time is in devising a good work routine that follows the seasons as they change every 20 minutes or so. It can get hectic if you try to manage everything every season unless you prioritize. I see sometimes real-life lessons in all this. 

Also, seasonal events are starting next week in this game. I wonder what they'll entail?

Sky Diver (Atari 2600) - So the cart I got wouldn't work in my Retron '77 even though it's apparently compatible with it. I took it back to my game store and they cleaned it again and tested it. It works fine on their original 2600. Sooo, I'll try again next week. Maybe it just needed another cleaning. 

Space Invaders Forever - I played this on my PS4 and loved it. It's three games, Space Invaders Extreme, Space Invaders Gigamax 4 and Arkanoid vs Space Invaders. 

Extreme is great and I have it now on DS and can't wait to play it there. Gigamax 4 is like a multiplayer SI game. The screen is much wider with many more aliens and multiple (up to four) battle ships. It's difficult to beat the bosses solo though. Arkanoid vs Space Invaders was a mobile game originally. You use the touch pad on the PS4 controller to control the Vaus (paddle) and bounce back the alien shots, destroying them and breaking up any walls. It's really fun. I love it and wish I could get a handheld version on DS or 3DS, but it came out after all that and Switch will have to do when I get the full Invincible Collection there.  

Purchases - I got Far Cry Primal: Digital Apex Edition for $5 on a sale. I'll always wanted to try that one. The Space Invaders Extreme for DS ($20). I have both 1 and 2 now CIB. I think it would be even better on a handheld than console. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team for $15 after I traded in some stuff. It was $45 CIB before the trade. I had played the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team on the Switch GBA subscription service and absolutely fell in love with it. This Blue Rescue Team is "essentially identicle" to Red according to wiki. I'm so happy to have it. Heretic/Hexen bundle on Game Pass! I downloaded it the second I saw it on the Xbox phone app. $15 if you want to buy it for console. My buddy and I played these on PC back in the 90s a lot, and I loved the N64 version of Hexen, which we played co-op a lot too. 

And that's a week. In a month I'm going to RetroCon near me with my gaming buddy. That month Borderlands 4 and Sonic Racing Crossworlds comes out too. The holiday season begins!

PS: See my other blog, tomesintime@wordpress.com for 1970s TV/Film/Books/Games etc.. on Sunday nights this month.