Update 4

 Kind of mixed these days.

1) I did follow the rest of the chess world championship. Gukesh won without going to tiebreaks. There were 5 decisive games. So that is ok for a 14 game match. But overall I didn't feel super excited. 

2) Been sticking to video games but been kind of bouncing around. 

    Started Outer Worlds which is sci-fi rpg. Development was led by the pair of guys that also led development on Fallout and I guess there are a lot of similarities although I haven't played the Fallout games. I got Outer Worlds for free on Epic. It had been on my wishlist for a good while so I was happy to get it. Incidentally I got most of the Fallout games for free that way also. But anyways, I started it but didn't really feel super engaged.

    I also started Norco which is a highly rated indie pixel graphics point and click rpg type game. So far it is pretty weird in a way I like. It is set in a town outside of New Orleans where there is a refinery. It is in the near future and some things are different but it is mostly recognizable. There are some slightly depressing themes like the main character (Kay) returns to Norco from wandering around a fragmented US after the death of her mother and Kay's brother seems to be a pretty troubled person. So some of the family dynamics are kind of dysfunctional. The town is also polluted of course. But there is plenty that is intriguing about the setting and the game so far.

    I have also been playing Book of Hours. This is a game by a 2 person studio called Weather Factory. This is only their second game but the pair have some experience working on games for other studios. I played their first game and liked it but kind of put it down and haven't gone back to it. Their whole gig is that their games are about the occult and there is pretty minimal instruction in game about what you are supposed to do. I really like their take on the occult. It's done in a way that suggests that there are things you need to be careful about. But it is not really horrible or dark or evil. Kind of cozy in way without being cutesy. Anyways, it is a kind of card game in that you play with cards that appear for various reasons. You fit them in certain slots for buildings or to talk to people. There are also some items you can use in various ways. In this game you play as the librarian of an occult library. So the game is intriguing but I am also finding it frustrating because sometimes it seems like progress is pretty slow and comes with effort. Mostly this effort is in terms of figuring out how things work. Experience with the first game has helped a bit.

    Also started a game called Morimens. I guess this is what is called a gacha game. This means it involves a mechanic that is pretty similar to gambling. So the gambling is that you pay some kind of currency to get a "pull" which is a chance at winning some character or a variety of other things that you can use. There a variety of currencies some of which of course cost real world money. So the game is free to play but they try to rope you into paying for stuff. You can get some "pulls" with free currency that you earn from in game activities. So basically I have no intention of putting any money into the game. I am just kind of curious about what constitutes a gacha game and so am investigating this one because reviews are good and they claimed that the game is very generous with free pulls. But anyways, I played a bit but kind of dropped it because I was facing a problem that every time I would advance a stage the game would increase the suggested level of my characters but my characters didn't seem to level up and there didn't seem to be a way to level them up. I still have plenty of free pulls. (I only did 5 so far). So I might go back on to exhaust those just to get a better feel for how the game works.

    Morimens' combat is very directly imitating Slay the Spire a game I own and have played a bit of. This inspired me to go back to play that game. This is a video game but features deck building. You start out with a small deck of cards and as you play you are able to add more cards and upgrade cards you already have. I guess there are a couple of reasons why Slay the Spire hasn't really hooked me despite the fact that it is a very popular and VERY influential game. I came to it after having played Magic and basically there are many fewer cards in Slay the Spire and they are much, much simpler than Magic cards. This made Slay seem kind of boring in comparison. Secondly is just that I don't really like the art in Slay. It just has sort of a silly style that doesn't really appeal to me. That said, after playing Morimens I somehow felt I appreciated Slay a bit more.

3) Been playing most days but journaling still seems to take up a lot of time. Ellie is in Japan this weekend and the twins are away most of the time. Was kind of hoping I could really sink some hours into something this weekend but it is already Sunday night and I haven't done much. Just been doing some chores and taking care of the dogs and a good bit of fairly pointless journaling.

4) Looking forward to the Steam winter sale which starts Thursday night for me. The winter sale is the second biggest of the seasonal sales after summer. These sales usually feature drastic price cuts like 90% off. So it is possible to pick up a lot of games for quite cheap especially because I am mostly shopping for indie titles that are much less expensive to begin with.  That said, I have been a bit impatient and have pulled the trigger on some 80% off discounts on games on my wishlist this last week. Most of the games are less than 100 NT when discounted like this. 100 NT is about $3.33.

5) Partly in preparation for the winter sale, I have been working my way through the Buried Treasure blog from oldest to newest looking for games that he reviews that spark my interest enough to wishlist them. Most of them I pass by but I still have wishlisted a good number and also gotten some interesting free games.

6) The Game Awards happened although I didn't pay too much attention. I did see the list of winners today. The game of the year was a console game that didn't look that interesting and the games that did have PC versions just didn't seem to be my kind of thing. Balatro won a couple of awards. I have played this. It is vaguely poker related deck builder. It is ok. There was a lot of hype about it when it came out. I guess it is good in that it is rogue like (meaning you start over at the beginning each time you play) deck builder that is actually different than Slay the Spire. I didn't really feel hooked. Neva won an award. This game was on my radar but not enough to wishlist. I might take another look. 

7) I met my last goal of reviewing Suzerain after playing at least 10 hours but haven't really set a new goal. Kind of been wanting to in that I am feeling like I want a mission. But just been bouncing around so no really clear cut goal has presented itself yet.