Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Depression: Well, after a little exchange with my doctor, we're trying an increased dosage. So far, no truly dark days or breakdowns and I can pull myself back from negative thoughts a bit easier. I worry, though, that it may also be keeping me a little... hmm... "floaty" comes to mind - less able to focus/commit to doing a thing. That's hard to quantify and confirm, though. Hmm... Reading: I have a few books on my "to read" list, though I find myself reluctant to start in on them. I received The Dragons of Babel along with The Iron Dragon's Daughter, but after reading the latter I'm not sure I want to read the former. Certainly, if it's the same level of aimlessness and depressive squandering of a character and setting, I'm not up to that right now. The latest (final?) book of the Lightbringer series has been available for a while, but I've been hesitant to pick it up. I've generally enjoyed the series and characters, but as i...

What the F- did I just read? In broad terms, it's got some interesting concepts. We have a fae world in which our protagonist human-stolen-as-changeling and several other children are used as forced mechanical labor in the construction of hypertech/magical dragons that seem to serve as a sort of air force. Written in 1993, I actually wonder if that could have influenced a few things in Rym. But the protagonist escapes and settles into a life as a student in this fae world, getting into sex, drugs, magic, and such. There are elements of fate and repetition as she encounters people who are sort of parallel incarnations of former friends, sharing true names and some facets of how they interact with her life. There's talk of a Goddess behind the fae world. There's bits of crossover with the mundane world, as she sees occasional visions of her mother. And the dragon pushes her toward a nihilistic goal that is more its own. But damn it's chaotic. Jane is pulled along t...

It's all we've got, but man it's sometimes just horribly inadequate. Perhaps I should make an attempt to engage more in direct verbal exchanges over text-based ones, though it's often impractical in this day and age. Also, that's likely to only help in some cases. One day this week I got bent out of shape by an email exchange with another HOA board member. I made a suggestion for an alternate budget to consider and got what came across as a very hostile response regarding my "nerve." I really shouldn't have checked that email just before going to bed, as it made it difficult to sleep while I mulled over what I had said and how it could have provoked such a response. That has cooled down some, but it still doesn't make me eager to interact with her in any fashion if she gets that defensive, reading things I never said into a message. Maybe she's stressed - entirely possible - but I really dislike the projected feeling that she sees anyone not ...

A Plague Tale reminds me of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.  Both games sort of came out of nowhere and are better than they really have a right to be. Both games have a little mechanical roughness and are fairly straightforward experiences, but they look better than some "Triple-A" games. Where Hellblade was a journey of relative solitude dealing with psychological issues and straight-up combat, A Plague Tale  has more focus on relationships and stealth. You play Amicia, daughter of a noble family in the 1300's with a plague of perhaps supernatural origins in the background and the Inquisition coming after her family for some reason. Through most of the game, she's accompanied by her younger brother Hugo and armed with a sling and a handful of alchemical concoctions with which to avoid soldiers and hordes of rats. There's a lot of sneaking around and working through environmental puzzles, the latter often to avoid said rats. As the game progresses, the sup...

Let's see... what entertainments to talk about of late? I started back up Battletech (rather than looking at the recent, Epic-exclusive Mechwarrior 5 ) and loaded in a 3062-based mod which introduces a lot more complexity to the game by making more mech components available for damage/replacement as well as putting in many later technologies and a crapload of new mechs and variants. I did not foresee quite the impact that I got. The strategic game radically slowed down for me. Getting enough components to get a new mech is much more difficult - part of that I think I had control over at the start of the career-mode play by selecting 5 rather than 3 to complete a mech, but also partly because the huge variety means getting enough of a specific mech (and not all mech variants are compatible in that way) requires luck. It's actually been kind of new to upgrade my starter mechs, so they have lasted longer, but I've run a lot of missions and only have one complete mech I didn...

Disco Elysium is a text-heavy, action-light RPG. It probably does remind me most closely of Planescape: Torment, though it isn't quite as legitimately "out there" as that classic. The character-defining stats are daunting as hell at first glance with things like Rhetoric (ability to persuade others) and Pain Threshold (affecting physical health) to Esprit de Corps (connection with and knowledge of police) and Encyclopedia (general world knowledge). The game is strewn with passive skill checks that affect information presented to you, the player. Then there are active checks to accomplish certain things, many of which can be attempted again if you increase the relevant trait. You also get Thoughts that can be suggested by conversations and encounters that you can put into your "Thought Cabinet" to consider for several in-game hours until reaching a conclusion. Such things usually have a negative modifier that, upon conclusion, becomes a positive one. Some don...

Okay, I should start by saying I've avoided spoilers, barely seen trailers, and set my expectations pretty low. I always say that endings are hard, and building the end of a 9-episode Star Wars sequence is a burden I wouldn't envy. It doesn't help that Episode 8 upended a lot of established content in ways that were... questionable. Where does one go from there? With all that in mind, I think The Rise of Skywalker did okay. I don't feel betrayed or seriously let down. I also don't feel radically uplifted and into Star Wars more than before. It felt more respectful of the canon than The Last Jedi, but it couldn't totally ignore that movie either. There are a lot of references and call-backs as major series characters and threads are gathered up as best as possible to try to tie things together. And with all that going on, things are cranked up to 11. I felt that was unnecessary, but also almost inevitable. Sequels are supposed to be "more and bigger...