Inconsistent Software

Top Games 2025

2026-01-19T01:12:00Z

Games! There were so many surprise hit this year from smaller studios. Looking back at 2024, this might be the trend now? Not that I don't enjoy the big games, but the smaller games made by smaller teams have a lot of heart in them and are fun to play.

The List

My top games for 2025!

Arc Raiders
Blue Prince
Factorio: Space Age
Deltarune: Chapter 3 & 4
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
Donkey Kong Bananza

Arc Raiders

I didn't really get the appeal of extraction shooters before I played the Arc Raiders playtest. I love roguelikes, but something about constant hardcore PvP where you can lose your stuff did not sound appealing at all. Yet Arc Raiders immediately showed me what there is to like in the genre.

I look forward to when Marathon releases.

Blue Prince

Ah, Blueprints. I enjoyed the main part of the game, but by the end, I was just trying to line up the right rooms to get the keys and get to the 46th room. It also didn't help that I messed up my gear rooms, like Security, with the wrench and made it super rare... It's a great game, but puzzles after the end starting to drive me crazy.

I was waffling if this or Blue Prince should be my game of the year, and I think I finally made the choice. Blue Prince was good, but Arc Raiders caught the zeitgeist despite it's use of AI voices. Blue Prince would have been my top if it didn't annoy me so much at the end.

Factorio: Space Age

If it wasn't for Balatro, Factorio: Space Age would have been Game of the Year last year. And now that it's not "new", it just doesn't feel right to give it Game of the Year now. Sorry Factorio, maybe you will get Game of the Decade.

This shouldn't come as a surprise that I kept playing Factorio this year. I did everything but get to the edge of the solar system, which I didn't do because building the ship to do it was taking too long. I took a break from the game for most of the year to play these other fine games, but as of December, I spun up a server with some mods for my second playthrough. This game scratches the brain in all the right ways.

Deltarune: Chapter 3 & 4

The music slaps. I'm not sure about how I feel about the episodic nature of the releases. I like the chapter format for the story structure (It was this year that someone pointed out and I realized each chapter is 1 in-game day). But, having yeats between chapters means I forgot the details for chapters 1 & 2, which means some of the story doesn't have the same impact compared to if I played it the day or week before. But, returning to see Ralsei and Susie is like returning to see some old friends. I like the character growth Susie is going through and I want to see it to the end.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

This game has the style and vibes to be game of the year, I just haven't finished it. It's really nice to return to a good turn based combat system.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

I played this one a little late in the year but I love it. I really enjoyed the original on 3DS back in the day, so this was an enjoyable and much larger sequel to return to. There's almost too much to do in it. I can also feel the deeper influence on it, like the town build sequences remind me so much of Dark Cloud 2. It's a very enjoyable game that I hope to finish in 2026.

Donkey Kong Bananza

Oh, Banana.

I played this with my 5-year-old who also enjoyed it. It's a slurry of bananas that's pretty fun, but I don't think I need to play it anymore.

Honorable Mentions

These are other games I enjoyed and want to mention.

Peak
Void Crew
Lethal Company
Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Battlefield 6
Unbeatable

Peak and the rise of Prox-Chat games

So-called friend slop games are all about friends and are not sloppy at all. Jank yes, chaotic yes, but a whole lot of fun. I have a lot of fun exploding in Void Crew, falling in Peak, and dying in Lethal Company. Here's to more gaming with friends in 2026.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A

I don't know what caused me to think it, but I thought I would be able to control the Pokémon a little more directly and dodge attacks or something. I made it... At least half the way through I think before I feel off.

Battlefield 6

They made a good one of those. I was playing regularly up until Arc Raiders released and I haven't been back. I am also switching to Linux on the desktop this year, I don't know how much I will actually be playing it in 2026.

Unbeatable

I started this late in the year, so I haven't finished it yet. The game explains nothing and I mostly like that. Hopefully I have more about it in 2026.

Games I've Finished!

Neva, Dreams of Aether, Deltarune: Chapter 3 & 4, Blue Prince, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Donkey Kong Bananza,

Other Games I Played and Liked

Monster Hunter: Wilds, Shapez 2, Cassette Beasts, Civilization VII, Monster Train

Other Games I Keep Meaning to Play

Octopath Traveler 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Pine, Kingdom Hearts 3, No Man's Sky, Ni no Kuni, Doom Eternal, Dwarf Fortress, Dispatch.

Other Games Started That I Keep Meaning to Finish

Pyre, Doom, Dragon Quest XI, Angels with Scaly Wings, Ni no Kuni II, Loop Hero, Tails Noir, Prey, Red Dead Redemption 2, Disco Elysium, Alan Wake, Control, God of War, Psychonauts 2, Tactical Breach Wizards.

Hello 11ty 3

2025-04-26T23:30:00Z

Hello Eleventy 3!

I was putting off doing this updating since October when eleventy and the blog template updated. Good thing because quite a bit changed. The RSS feed is different, some css changed, and images are loaded completely differently now. Images in posts are no longer using short codes but are now hmtl <img> tags. This was the most annoying part of the upgrade because it completely changed how general images are loaded too.

To do the update, I copied over the new blog template files and let them overwrite my files. I then checked for differences in git and added back my css changes and eleventy.config.js changes. Having most of my settings in other configs likes eleventy.config.characters.js really helped with this update. Git says 71 files changed in all.

Regex is my Friend

Regex is my friend. Before the short codes were like this.

Before:

{% image "./possum.png", "A possum parent and two possum kids hanging from the iconic red balloon", "", "", "image-sized-sm image-center" %}

Replace this by hand for every blog post is not something I wanted to do by hand, so with this little regex here, I was able to mass replace all of it.

Regex:

\{% image "([\w\d\s\/\\.\-]*)", "([\w\d\s\/\\.\-]*)", "([\w\d\s\/\\.\-]*)", "([\w\d\s\/\\.\-]*)", "([\w\d\s\/\\.\-]*)" %\}

Replacement:

<img src="$1"  alt="$2" class="$5" />

After:

<img src="./possum.png" alt="A possum parent and two possum kids hanging from the iconic red balloon" class="image-sized-sm image-center">

Regex is so powerful, I should learn more of it.

Image issues

Images are a little more strict now. Any instance of gets process unless I add eleventy:ignore to it like so.

<img eleventy:ignore src="/img/posts/top2018/delta.png" alt="deltarune" class="image-center" />

I had to reference the image plugin docs regularly to figure out how to keep my images in the public/img/ folder.

CommonJS to ESM

Scripts have been updated to export as modules. It was an easy enough change.

Before:

const charFoxis = require("./characters/foxis.js");

module.exports = {
	"characters": [
        charFoxis,
    ]
}

After:

import charFoxis from "./characters/foxis.js";

export default {
	"characters": [
        charFoxis,
    ]
}

Top Games 2024

2025-01-05T19:50:00Z

It's been a big year for non-AAA games! I've been blown away by the creativity of the smaller teams and the games they make and I really enjoyed my time with them.

Apparently I played less games this year on Steam, but I'm fairly certain it is because I played on the Playstation more in 2024 and I played 3 100+ hour games. I rarely play games for over 20 hours and I played three 100+ hour games this year.

The List

My top games for 2024!

Balatro
Factorio: Space Age
Satisfactory
1000xRESIST
Animal Well
Tactical Breach Wizards
Kitsune Tails
Nier: Automata
Baldur's Gate 3
Pseudoregalia
Arctic Eggs
Astro Bot

Balatro

Jokers. Bananas. Numbers. The perfect Steam Deck game. The first game this year I played for over 100 hours. The design of Balatro is incredible. It boils down the essence of what a deck builder rogue-like is using familiar poker style hands.

I have 1 gold stake on the Checkered deck and finished all the challenges. The Golden Needle challenge felt like the quintessential challenge of Balatro, showing knowledge of the game mixed with the luck you need during a run. I did not like the Jokerless challenge. It was not the same game. But overall, the challenges were fun and now I'm slowly completing more decks.

Slay the Spire never fully clicked for me but now I want to try it again now that I've played Balatro. I'm hoping I will understand the scaling mechanics better.

Satisfactory

If it wasn't for Balatro, Satisfactory would have been Game of the Year. But, it already won that in 2020 and Balatro was just that good. Satisfactory was the second game this year I played for over 100 hours.

I was enjoying this game for the first 120 hours, and then I went achievement hunting. I don't normally complete all the achievements for the game but I felt like I was so close. It nearly killed me and I don't want to play this game anymore. Grinding out 1000 tickets to get the golden nut was not fun. But the game is a lot of fun and I'm hoping to return after a big content update.

Foxis: What's this, it's Factorio with a steel chair!

Factorio: Space Age

If it wasn't for Balatro, Factorio: Space Age would have been Game of the Year. I would have put 100+ hours into Factorio if I didn't start it so late in the year. It is currently my 2025 game of the year. I was really enjoying Satisfactory but Factorio being top down 2D constrained the design space to allow for really in-depth simulation. I love it.

I am now fully into Factory games and Space Age really expands what you can do in the game. I don't know if I'll ever "finish" this game, whatever that means, but it's going to be my main game for the foreseeable future. Making a thing and then turning it into another thing is such a satisfying game play loop.

Wow, the simulation for this game is amazing. As annoying as the biters are and how tempted I've been to nerf their settings, they are an integral part of the design of Factorio.

My mostly balanced two train iron station

1000xRESIST

I wasn't entirely sure what this game is but I love it. It's my favorite type of weird science fiction. It almost didn't grab me, but I was hooked by the end of chapter 3. I liked how the game grounded itself with the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests and shows how these events are real, they are historical, and how history effects and connects us to today's events.

Pseudoregalia

She's built that way.

Arctic Eggs

Eggs.

Honorable Mentions

These are other games I enjoyed and want to mention.

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
Slay the Princess
Tiny Rogues
Helldivers II

Games I've Finished!

Nier: Automata, Balatro (Can you really finish Balatro?), Animal Well, Pseudoregalia, Astro Bot, Satisfactory, Arctic Eggs, Slay the Princess, 1000xRESIST

Other Games I Played and Liked

Cusineer, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Remake

Other Games I Keep Meaning to Play

Octopath Traveler 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Pine, Kingdom Hearts 3, No Man's Sky, Ni no Kuni, Doom Eternal, Dwarf Fortress, Lord of the Rings Online.

Other Games Started That I Keep Meaning to Finish

Pyre, Doom, Dragon Quest XI, Angels with Scaly Wings, Ni no Kuni II, Loop Hero, Tails Noir, Prey, Red Dead Redemption 2, Disco Elysium, Alan Wake, Control, God of War, Psychonauts 2.

Blaugust 2024 - Staying Motivated

2024-08-25T15:15:00Z

So, this is beyond the last day of Staying Motivated Week for Blaugust. I'm pretty well motivated for everything else I do, but writing.

I tinker with so many side projects. My issue is not motivation, but staying focused long enough on any one thing to finish it. I have my todo lists for small tasks but long term projects require a bit more planning that I'm not really keen on doing. Or at least, staying on course after the planning. I was ready to start Blaugust this year and write more, but I ended up spending more time with my other projects and ended up writing less.

I did do stuff, so overall my goals are progressing, just not blogging. This is also the reason why my blog is so empty for most of the year. I should write more. I'll try to blog at least once a month.

Blaugust 2024 - Creator Appreciation

2024-08-16T14:30:00Z

It's the tail end of Blaugust Creator Appreciation Week and I appreciate all the creators out there.

If you've seen what I like in stuff, you'll know I love media from books and games to movies and comics. None of that would exist without the people to create it, so thank you very much.

Networking for Dragon Game Framework : Data Optimization

2024-08-15T14:30:00Z

This is part 2 for Networking for Dragon Game Framework : Observability. These are my ramblings as I work through problems with Dragon Game Framework (DragonGF), an MMO networking library.

I've had this drafted up for some time (since 2022) but never posted. I will be posting it now for Blaugust.

Fixed Point Decimals and Data Packing

We now have a position as 3 fixed point decimals (32 bit numbers) to represent a large but smaller than previous game space which we send updates for at 10 Hz (10 updates every second). Each message contains a byte for message type, 4 bytes for the entity id, and 2 bytes for the component id. If we add it all together, each message is 4+4+4+1+4+2 = 19 bytes, plus a little more overhead. At 10 Hz, that is 190 bytes per second per moving entity. With 100 moving entities, that's now 19 Kilobytes per second for only position which is a lot better than the previous estimated 31 KB/s!

Is it possible to improve this further with compression and more data packing? Probably yes. Definitely yes.

The Name

Originally, I prototyped it as just MMO Game Framework in response to the issue with SpatialOS and Unity back in early 2019. In 2022, I revisited the project and wanted to give the it a fun name. I like dragons so it's became MMO Dragon Game Framework or DragonGF for short, also known as Dragon Girlfriend.

What's Next?

A tech demo! I'm working on a simple pirate ship game that will show the basics of what the project can do. I'll also take suggestions on what else to build with it. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should make a simple fantasy RPG with it. All of this is when I can get to it of course.

Foxis: This may be a while.

Well Known Button

2024-08-09T16:00:00Z

Hey! If you have a blog or personal website (you should), make a website button!

In the search for adding more things into the /.well-known/ folder, some internet friends/acquaintances (@arch@floofy.tech) started the well known button specification, and it's been taking off. I added the 88x31 button to my smaller single page site, but it took me a while to add it here on my blog with the well known path.

Foxis: And here it is, my button!

inconsistent.software well known button

And here is my shenanigans website button too.

foxis.dev well known button

The spec is simple at the moment with the button and links, but the main purpose is to have an easy thing to share for people to display on their websites. The buttons can be image types like png, jpg, or gif for animated buttons. I highly recommend adding a button for you're website or blog. And, then add website links and buttons to your website to bring back webrings. I am starting to get more into the indieweb. I have friend links and buttons at foxis.dev but I have yet to copy them here. But I will!

Also, feel free to add my button and website your button lists, I will do them same if you message me.

Friends with more buttons:

Blaugust 2024 Prompt - Personal Mascot

2024-08-08T16:00:00Z

From the Blaugust prompt list:

If you had a mascot to represent you, what would it be?
How did you get the name that you regularly go by online, and what if anything does it mean?
Tell us about some community that you are part of and why it interests you or how it impacts you?

This is mostly copied from last year's post.

Foxis: What is a personal mascot but a fursona?

Mascot

All of these prompts are related to each other, so I will write about them in one blog post. What is a personal mascot other than something you want to represent and identify as yourself? On the internet, we have profile pictures and avatars with bio descriptions. Some people take it further making full character identities like fursonas, and even take it off the internet with real costumes. In my case, I identify as my dragon art, but I don't go full fursuit with it because:

It is expensive
I don't fully identity with my body in that way.

I'm not a therian but I wouldn't mind having a fluffy tail? Anyway, I already have a "mascot" and I recommend making one for yourself too.

It's me, Foxis the Cookie Dragon

The Name

I went through a few names online. First just my name with a number. Later Tythin which I eventually no longer wanted to use. When I came up with my dragon, he was originally just The Cookie Dragon with no other name. Eventually I settled on Foxis because it's unique enough and because I like foxes. My alt name is Kite in MMORPGs, taken directly from .HACK.

Furry Community In General

I've been online for a long time now and I really miss forums. I started reading the webcomic TwoKinds, and was active on the forums for a few years which lead me to the general Furry Fandom. I always liked talking animals in movies, and it wasn't until later that I realized a lot of people are into it, and they make their own characters and art.

Foxis: Thanks Robin Hood

I feel like I'm part of that broader community, but I mainly interact with a limited number of people on Discord and Social Media. Actually, I like that I'm split between the game developer community and the furry fandom.

Final Thoughts

Make yourself a mascot/fursona. It's a lot more fun to be an animal on the internet than yourself.

Foxis: Rawr!

You can find the rest of my dragon art in my dragon gallery.

10 Years of Neon Mitsumi Gift Art

2024-08-04T13:14:00Z

Neon Mitsumi had a lot of gift art made for friends, including emotes and another piece for me. Thanks Neon!

Neon has gifted us art in the past which is why we had our own gift art made for him. And now he one upped us again with a fun card pack opening game on Discord for us to find all the art. Each set of art had a different color theme. It seemed like a lot of effort but was a cool thing to do.

Here is the art he had made for me.

Cyan by Echo-Of-The-Sea

Emotes drawn by Echo-Of-The-Sea!

Drawn by Echo-Of-The-Sea

Magenta by Kubivy

Art drawn by Kubivy!

Drawn by Kubivy

Foxis: Thanks Neon!

You can find the rest of my dragon art in my dragon gallery.

Blaugust 2024 Prompt - Key Sources of Media That Have Shaped My Worldview

2024-08-03T10:30:00Z

What are some key sources of media (games/movies/etc) that have shaped your worldview?

I list quite a bit of it in stuff.

Foxis: I collect a lot of stuff

I cover games, music, webcomics, and recently, books. I have yet to add movies but I shall be doing that soon. I love media. Some of my favorite things to do growing up was reading a book or enjoying a good movie. Nowadays I read less but I still remember fondly the books I grew up with.

Books

I loved dragons already so Eragon captured my imagination. Books are great, so check out my bookshelf for other books to read.

Eragon / Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini
Myth Adventures by Robert Lynn Asprin
Designing Virtual Worlds by Richard Bartle
Spice and Wolf by Isuna Hasekura

Webcomics

I love webcomics. Each are creatively different and I love following as the artists improve their art and writing over the years.

TwoKinds
Freefall
Slightly Damned

You can find the rest of my favorite webcomics here.

Games

Not sure what more I can add, I love playing and making video games.

Undertale
Final Fantasy XIV
Elden Ring / Dark Souls
Magic: The Gathering

You can find the rest of my favorite games here.

Music

Music is yet another important part of my life. I was in concert and marching band from middle through high school.

Modest Mouse
Silversun Pickups
Nirvana

You can find the rest of my favorite bands here.

Movies

I probably have a favorite movie list somewhere, but off the top of my head, I like:

Wolf Children
Zootopia
Star Wars Episode 5
Idiocracy
Lord of the Rings

Conclusion

I love books, video games, music, etc. I can't imagine a world without any of these and they very much make me who I am.

Blaugust 2024 Introduction

2024-08-01T16:45:00Z

Hello Blaugust! I'm here to mostly copy my intro post from last year. I'm hoping to write more posts over the weekend because I have been pretty busy this week.

Introduction

Hello Bloggers, I am a game developer that blogs every once in a while. I like talking about tech, what games I'm playing, and whatever else that crosses my mind. I love MMORPGs and most game genres in general.

Foxis: I will also be commenting here and there. Rawr!

This is my second Blaugust and am excited to do it. I've been blogging off and on for years, so having an event that gamifies it enough for me has me hyped for writing. Also, good luck to you who are joining Blaugust for the first time!

Blaugust Plans

I don't know how much I'm actually going to write, but I'll start by grabbing some topics from the prompt list. I want to cover these tops at the minimum and hopefully do more. I think I was a little confused about some of the week themes last Blaugust. But I'm just going to write as much as I can about things and stuff, and see what happens.

My goal this time is to make more articles than last year. I also want to update my sites format and organize a bit. Stuff can use some improvements.

Final Thoughts

I'm excited to write more! I think I told myself I will blog more this year and Blaugust is the perfect event for that.

Blaugust 2024 is Coming

2024-07-20T14:45:00Z

Blaugust is coming...

Foxis: And I am not ready.

Blaugust Festival of Blogging 2024.

Blaugust is almost here! Belghast's Blaugust intro post caught me by surprise, where has the year gone? I had a blast doing Blaugust last year, see here, so I am looking forward to posting for this year's blogging festival. I might wing it, but I should draft up some initial posts for it again. Anyway, if you have a personal blog, participate! I'm going to go read the prompts now.

Badger Dungeon

2024-05-26T00:00:00Z

I made a game for the Badger 2040 called Badger Dungeon.

I realized since I can save state on the Badger 2040, I can make a game with it, so I made a dungeon crawler. Making this was a lot of fun and the hardware limitation meant I can actually finish this project, yay. The code is open source, so check it. I also made a Gameboy Advance style instruction booklet as a fitting throwback for explaining how the game works.

You are a badger, on a quest. Delve into the dungeon in search of treasure. But what dangers lurk in every room as you explore deeper into the dungeon? How far you can go in Badger Dungeon!

Source Code: https://github.com/judah4/badger-dungeon

Instruction Booklet: https://github.com/judah4/badger-dungeon/blob/main/documentation/Badger%20Dungeon%20Instruction%20Booklet.pdf

Top Games 2023

2024-01-02T16:45:00Z

Games! What a tumultuous year for games and those that were laid off. It's awful this year had so many highs and lows, and I hope everyone finds jobs doing what they want to do.

I ended up playing a lot of games. More games this year than any before.

Foxis: Nice

I like Steam's end of year summary. Not only did I try 69 games on steam, I completed 11 games. A lot of them were from 2017, so apparently that was just not a good year for finishing games.

I also picked up the OLED version of the Steam Deck. I didn't initially think it would make much of a difference, but I love it even more. Thanks to the Deck, I tried more of the smaller games I have in my backlog. I didn't like all of them, but they are at least no longer neglected in the eternal backlog.

The List

My top games for 2023!

Armored Core 6
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Baldur's Gate 3
Hi-Fi Rush
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Forza Horizon 5

Armored Core 6

Armored Core 6 just barely beat out Tears of the Kingdom for my top game, but I had so much fun playing it.

Foxis: The end of the chapter 1 boss is hard. I spend hours my first night trying to beat it with no success.

The chapter one boss was definitely a tough one. It doesn't help that the first time I tried it, the game crashed on the cut scene right before the boss. Since them, I got gud. I beat all 3 ending is about... 41 hours or so. By the end, the early bosses barely gave me any trouble. What a great game.

My steam taste profile is apparently mechs.

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was so good. I wasn't sure I was going to be ready for it, but I finished Breath of the Wild right before in April. TOTK is amazing. It takes everything from Breath of the Wild and expands it. The building system to make vehicles is so creative. I'm amazed how you can seamlessly fall from the sky to the underground with no loading screens. The game is a technical marvel.

Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate 3 is one of those top games of the decade. Unfortunately I did not play it as much as I should have, otherwise it will probably be higher on the list. It might be on next years top games list too at the rate I play it.

I am currently playing as a Dragonborn Wizard. I accidentally started a dark urge character because I couldn't figure out what was the custom character button. After a few hours I switched to a regular character, but it was very confusing why my character wanted to randomly kill everyone.

Hi-Fi Rush

Foxis: I love the soundtrack!

I love how over the top the action is with all the robots. The story is not bad too. The action combat to the beat is a lot of fun.

The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog

What a great little game, and a surprise!

Forza Horizon 5

This is here because my friend group plays this on Tuesday's, and it's a blast to play. We have a buddy that makes custom tracks to race on. Our favorite thing is to race B Class Friendlies.

Honorable Mentions

These are other games I enjoyed and want to mention.

Jusant

A friend of mine played Jusant during the Steam Demo Fest, and I was intrigued. It has interesting climbing traversal mechanics and a light story.

Final Fantasy XIV

I'm still playing it and eagerly waiting for the next expansion, Dawntrail.

Kite in FF14 with his cat parasol.

Roots of Pacha

Shout out to Roots of Pacha! My friend released their game this last year, and it's great! Play it if you like farming games like Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley.

Mabinogi

I checked back on my old favorite MMO on a while, and I was hit with so much nostalgia. I don't think I really want to play it for reals again, but it's nice to see it's still active. There was a recent quality of life update, so maybe I'll check it out again next year.

Astro's Playroom

What a nice little game. I completed it 100% because my son enjoyed watching me play it.

Games I've Finished!

Jedi: Fallen Order, Railbound, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Armored Core 6, Viewfinder, Jusant, Tacoma, Bluey: The Video Game, Astro's Playroom, Dear Esther.

Other Games I Played and Liked

Moonlighter, Mabinogi, Fuga: Melodies of Steel, Forza Motorsport 2023, Slay the Spire, Baba is You, Backpack Battles Demo, Palia, Satisfactory.

Other Games I Keep Meaning to Play

Octopath Traveler 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Pine, Kingdom Hearts 3, No Man's Sky, Ni no Kuni, Doom Eternal, Dwarf Fortress, Lord of the Rings Online.

Other Games Started That I Keep Meaning to Finish

Pyre, Doom, Dragon Quest XI, Angels with Scaly Wings, Ni no Kuni II, Loop Hero, Backbone, Prey, Red Dead Redemption 2, Disco Elysium, Alan Wake, Control, Nier: Automata, God of War, Psychonauts 2.

September 2023 Recap

2023-09-30T21:30:00Z

After Blaugust in August, I have posted nothing. Here are some highlights of the last month.

Blaugust ended! It was fun but as I expected, I am now content dry.

I'm loving Armored Core 6. Baldur's Gate 3 nearly took me, but I held strong and fell in love with AC6. I love From Software games in general and this one is near perfect. I completed my first play through and nearing the end of New Game Plus Plus. That's right, it's so good I'm playing it 3 times in a row.

Final Fantasy 14 is having its 10th anniversary event. I'm playing it between AC6, and I am collecting enough tomestones to get the Fat Cat Umbrella.

I haven't returned to Palia, although I keep meaning to. There's too many games to play.

What happened to Unity? I haven't been using it in a while, but now I'm tinkering with my own game engine by learning Vulkan. I was able to get it to run on my Steamdeck.

Blaugust 2023 Retrospective - Lessons Learned

2023-09-01T03:05:00Z

Wow, I wrote 11 articles (plus this one)! Here is my post for the Lessons Learned Week for Blaugust.

This was a fun experience. I was way more into it than I thought I was going to be. I was able to clear out a bunch of my drafts this month. This event also inspired more posts I haven't gotten to yet. After this I am going to be blogging less for a while.

I enjoyed reading other people's blogs during the event. I grabbed the big blog roll and stuck it in my RSS reader and skimmed through all the posts each day. Going forward, I'm going to keep reading, just maybe less frequently. For lessons learned, I really like group events like this for motivation. I can write if I put my mind to it! I also learned that I just need to write and put stuff out there if I want to get better in general.

Some Stats

My blog is hosted on Netlify, so I pay for basic sever-side analytics. Traffic has been pretty good for me from what I can tell.

It looks like my top post was Top Webcomics of All Time. I wonder how long this traffic tail will be. The nice thing with blogs vs social media is that these posts should be easy to find forever and generally be relevant. My Getting Started With Game Development post still gets traffic from time to time, so it's worth it to me to at least try to write good stuff. I should probably make an updated version of that post because a lot has changed since 2018.

Achievements

I earned some achievements! I didn't earn them all but I feel pretty good for what I did.

Blaugust

All my Blaugust 2023 info and achievements can be found on my Blaugust page. All my Blaugust posts are tagged with "Blaugust 2023" which has a handy list here. I'm probably going to participate next year so see you all around!

Healing in Virtual Worlds - A College Anthropology Research Paper

2023-08-29T15:00:00Z

I wrote this paper in my last year of college before graduating. The course was something along the lines of an anthropology class about healing rituals in cultures.

I originally was going to write about using games for healing, but I was deep in virtual world theory at the time, so I ended writing about healing in the context of the culture of the virtual world. Specifically, this is about Final Fantasy XIV, but it covers the general theory. For motivation, I streamed writing this on Twitch. Viewer count was not high, but it worked, I wrote the thing.

Available as PDF: Healing in Virtual Worlds

Blaugust 2023 Prompt - Games To Know Me

2023-08-28T15:00:00Z

This prompt has been going around the other Blaugust blogs like Casual Aggro's and Indiedee's, so here's mine.

These are the games to know me.

Not long ago I made my top games of all time post, but this is prime Blaugust content, so I'm writing a bit more about it.

Undertale

Undertale is my number one game. I played it at the right time for it resonant and stays with me to this day. I like Deltarune, but it's hard to live up to the original.

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV is my most played game. Shadowbringers has an amazing story and I play it a lot with friends and family. It is my favorite current MMO.

Elden Ring / Dark Souls

I've never actually finished Dark Souls 1 but it is so important to me for the style of games I enjoy. I did complete Dark Souls 2 as a Dual-wielding swordsman. Elden Ring was of course amazing mixing soulsborn gameplay with great open world design.

Mabinogi

My all-time favorite MMO. I played this so much in high school. I loved the skill based stat system. Runescape may have been why I feel in love with MMORPGs but Mabinogi is what deepened my interest and why I love virtual worlds.

Dark Cloud 2

AAAAAAAAAHH. This game does so much and it is amazing. It has enough game systems to rival an MMORPG. The stylized art holds up for being a PS2 game. I still play it from time to time now that it's re-released for PS4.

Magic: The Gathering

I spend too much on the card game, but I enjoy player EDH/Commander. I want to design my own card game some day and MTG is a huge influence why.

Mass Effect

I annoyed my brother so much by listening to the audio codices when I was a teenager.

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story

My favorite Game Boy Advance game. Maybe tied with Friends of Mineral Town. I loved the action combat and the story was fun.

Solatorobo: Red the Hunter

My favorite Nintendo DS game. The music is some of my favorite game music, second to only Undertale.

Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons : Friends of Mineral Town

Stardew Valley is good, but this game is what hooked me on the genre. None of the sequels really got me like this version did.

Pokémon

As a bonus, more games! Pokémon Gold and Silver were my favorite versions. I've been playing every generation since but I've only ever beat the elite four in Gen 2, 4, 8, and 9.

Blaugust 2023 Prompt - 5 Facts About Me

2023-08-27T16:00:00Z

From the Blaugust prompt list, Tell us 5 facts about yourself.

Tell us 5 facts about yourself

Here it goes!

I have a 3-year-old toddler

I have a child! I've been married for 6+ years and I also have 2 cats and 1 dog.

I make video games professionally

Surprise, surprise, I make video games. I started my latest job this last year, and it's great! I've been waiting to make video games since I was 10 and started making simple ones since I was a teenager. I was working on an indie MMORPG for a while but am currently doing something else at the moment.

Dragons, Dragons, Dragons, Dragons

I like dragons. The Cookie Dragon came to be around 2012/2013 and has eventually become my dragon self.

Books and Comics

I love reading books and comics. Some of my favorite webcomics are TwoKinds and Freefall. I've been meaning to make a full top webcomics post, but I haven't gotten around to finishing it yet.

Final Thoughts

This list was harder to write than I thought. Am I not that interesting? I'm very brief when I write, but I try. I think I've spent too much time microblogging in my past, but that's why I want to write more. Till next time!

Blaugust 2023 Staying Motivated

2023-08-26T16:00:00Z

So, this is the Staying Motivated Week for Blaugust.

I think I was a bit confused about the format, so I'm writing this post at the end of the week.

Foxis: Whoops, I probably should have written something for Creator Appreciation Week

Anyways, what is motivation? It's not something you can really force which is why I use it more as a boost more than anything. Thankfully, my brain is very easy to trick with a little gamification. I've been using Todoist, a task tracking app, for years now, so I can track what I need to do and earn some points to go up in rank. It was a good start to build the habit since nowadays I'm ranked Grand Master with not many ranks left to chase.

Only five thousand more points to rank up!

Usually, I set some goals for each week, whether that's working on a software project, blogging, or something else that's creative. That is usually motivation enough because I have too many project to do and not enough time. And if I don't do it, that's okay.

Ultimately in my mind, it comes down to building the habits for what I want and need to do. Motivation adds that extra something that can lead to building habits. Blaugust is a good example for giving the motivation I needed to blog more. Once the event is over, I definitely won't be blogging as much, but now I'm going to be in the habit to at least blog once a month about things.