The Righteous Wrath of Pathfinder!

Before I jumped headfirst into EverQuest Legends, I had casually waded into an older game (crazy that a game made 5 years ago is "older") based on the Pathfinder game system.  Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous!  It was on sale on Steam for $4.99 a month ago, and I had overheard a group of friends were delving into it.

"Group?" You say, "But I thought that was a single player only game!" You are correct, but they were going to play it together through the power of a Multiplayer Mod available through Nexusmods. Honestly, I thought maybe Dylan (yes, the famous Dylan) and I could play it together.  As it turns out, he was busy at the moment and had no time to spare for my silly games, so I just gave it a quick solo run.

I ended up completing what I believe was Act I? I couldn't help myself comparing this game to Baldur's Gate 3 (or even Divinity Original Sin II), and honestly, how I felt like, "Why am I just not playing Baldur's Gate 3?" I guess the answer is, well, I've played Baldur's Gate 3 through four times already (387 hours played), but IT'S JUST THAT GOOD! I'm totally ready to play again (Happy third birthday BG3!)

What's different here is that it's the Pathfinder system (pretty wild and complex on its own), there's an auto-fight feature so you don't HAVE to always play turn-based combat, there are infinitely less branching pathways that affect gameplay, and . . . no epic, wildly inappropriate cut-scenes (like a bugbear playing quarterback and tight end with an ogre). Speaking of that, did you hear that Larian managed to get their stream banned on YouTube and TikTok?

There was a pretty cool cut scene at the beginning of the game. Dragon v Locust Demon!

The openness of the multiclass system has always been pretty great in Pathfinder. You want to build a hand-to-hand specialist that has a pet and buff spells? They got you fam. Of course, you can do the same thing in D&D, it's just a bit more difficult? Weird? More restricted so you don't make a dumb character?

Portrait doesn't match the race which doesn't match the actual character . . . but it's all good.

I did have fun with what I played, and I did like the auto-attack mode for trash fights. The ability to toggle back and forth between auto-attack and turn based worked really well for when the fight was hairy or the stakes were high. I imagine the goal might be to build strong enough characters to just auto-attack all the time, but really that means building pretty basic characters that focus only on attack and not all the myriads of other things you can do with a character that has a lot of spells and skills.

I'm a mythic hero now!

The final fight of Act 1 was pretty epic to be honest, you had waves of enemies coming in from four or five different points in the map, and after 12 rounds or so, the back gate crashes open with a minotaur. I finished that fight and completed the achievement for not letting the town burn, HURRAH!

I've finished a whopping 4 of 153 achievements . . .

I may come back to the game at some point to play a bit more, but for some reason finishing Act 1 felt like I got my $5 worth.  If I was more invested in leveling my weird character, I'd do it, but I'm not sure I like how he's turned out.

What I did find interesting is that . . . well, I wonder if the bargain basement sale came about because of the recent money troubles of Paizo, the parent company? If you didn't hear, Diamond Comics went bankrupt, causing $10 million worth of Pathfinder books to be held up in a warehouse. That coupled with a $2 million loss in 2025 resulted in them letting a dozen or so people go. Anyway, it's hard to see a good D&D competitor struggle.

*raises glass to Pathfinder* stay strong, friends!

Happy Dueling!

Russian Pirates Rushin' Goals in Windrose

The other day, my youngest looked over my shoulder while I was playing Windrose. At the time I was running around my mishmash rock-and-thatch villa with a dock, goofy giant rock arches, and a farm full of hot peppers and flax. He seemed a bit shocked and asked me what this game was (how could dad be playing a game he had never seen or heard of before). 

My homage to the Wasatch Mountains?

Windrose is, as I told him, the newest survival game, but with pirates, and he was like "survival game?" Now, THAT question, threw me off . . . like he had never heard of survival games before? I mean of course he had! So I took the opportunity to remind him of my library of games on Steam.

Ever heard of Valheim? Survival game but Vikings. Ever heard of V Rising? Survival game but Vampires. Ever heard of Dune Awakening? Survival game but Dune  Ever heard of Ark? Survival game but Dinosaurs. Ever heard of 7 Days to Die? Survival game but Zombies. (I could have kept going on . . . but he got the point . . . of course he had heard of survival games.)

"Why do you have so many survival games?"

Uh . . . they're fun? (I think sometimes he likes questioning me just to see what I would say . . . I should have told him it was all research for a VR Survival game, like Green Hell or A Township Tale, but I would have been lying. It would have been pretty great to work on a VR Survival Game though. Ain't gonna lie.)

So, Windrose is fun. I like it. No one should be surprised I like it, especially after having so much fun in the Demo a couple of months ago. When we saw that Windrose had a full early access release, the entirety of Team Spode (minus Mr. Spode himself, love you, Joey) jumped on board and started going overboard on the newest pirate-themed survival game.

There is a lot more to do here than in the Demo! The quests have all been fleshed out. Factions, Big Boss Fights at the biome end caps, ship crafting, skill trees, new enemies, new exploration types, farming, and more and more were all added in. In fact, two full, entire quest areas of stuff to do were added in, with a fourth promised in the wings!

Dylan and I are once again roleplaying it up and having fun together. Dylan named his character Boris the Blade and suggested Russian Gangsters. I loved it, but my Russian gangsta' ain't typical, see . . . I've been watching a metric ton of hockey and now that my beloved Utah Mammoth are in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I named my pirate Sergy the Slapshot after Mikhail Sergachev, my favorite Russian hockey player. 

Close enough for hockey pirates . . .

And of course, what ship does Sergy the Slapshot sail?  The mighty Utah Mammoth!

Love the name detail on the back of the ship to be honest . . .

What weapon and armor set does Sergy the Slapshot don?  Definitely the heavily padded Conquistador look with as close to a hockey stick as I can get in game . . . the good ol' Executioner's Halberd.

I get called for High Sticking a lot . . .

Heated Rivalry jokes aside . . . our Russian Hockey Duo is ready to scorch the seas! (Thanks for the joke, John.) 

So many muscles . . . so much heated rivalry . . .

So, I'll be posting more thoughts about the game as we play, but just wanted to get it out there so the readers of the Friendly Necromancer knew what was fascinating me these days.

Happy Dueling!

Mewgenics is Meowvelous!

My oldest picked up Mewgenics yesterday, and since we are on a family Steam account together, I decided to give it a spin. 

Sorry Skisee . . . General Grievous and Dotsy were just too alluring as my first two.

I had heard so much about this game already . . . just from buzz alone. First off, the list of meowing cameows is pretty amazing. (That's more influencers than you can shake a cat toy at.) Then there's the conpurrent player count that made Forbes news from Paul Tassi. I've even had a couple people hiss me up about it, so . . . I had to try my paws in the litterbox.

I used that same randomized naming string functionality in a Game Jam game once. Love it!

Mewgenics didn't disappoint. I can see why it's so successful. What do we have here . . . a turn-based quasi rogue-like with disposable units? Yeah, that's a great recipe. OH, what else do we have . . . freakish looking cartoon cats making babies (doing-it-like-they-do-it-on-the-Discovery-channel mind you) that are a visual combination of the parents? YES PLEASE! That's some primal, stupid humor stuff I can get behind.

OH MY WORD! WHAT DID I JUST WITNESS!?

Not to mention the game feels really great. Everything from the tutorial to the feedback of the gameplay to the synergy of items and powers. It's incredibly clever and well done. I've only played it for 3 hours and I could see myself dumping hours of my life into this game.

Go Crunkite!  Make your parents, Jordy and Walkyria, proud as a new fighter class cat!

So far I really like what I'm seeing with this game. Hope you're enjoying playing it as much as I am. Let me know what you think.

Happy Dueling!

Dobble Dungeon is Adorables!

Somehow, I stumbled upon this super cute game demo called Dobble Dungeon this morning on Steam, quickly downloaded it, and then added it to my wishlist. I can't remember if they were featuring it, or it just happened to show up in my recommended games.

You got it, clay explorer!

Dobble dungeon is a pretty basic turn-based RPG, but it's absolutely oozing with that claymation charm. In addition it's also a dice game where each character in your party rolls the dice and expends them on extra movement, attack, or buffs.

Have to take out the tent so it'll stop spawning bad guys!

Some abilities rely on certain dice rolls to activate them, such as the fireball ability from Amber the Pyromancer. At first, you'll need to roll two dice that have the same number to cast it, but eventually you can upgrade the ability so doubles aren't needed.

She's a devilishly cute caster of fiery death!

The upgrading system seems very similar to what you'd see in Diablo IV so far.  Basically, your party gets skill-ups, and you spend them on your characters to advance their skills.  This also means you could really heavily upgrade one character over another from what I can tell. Might be fun to do a run in the demo where you only invest in one character!

So noble! So clay-like!

This all feels and looks like an indie darling game that pays homage to Fire Emblem in the best of ways while doubling down on the cute charm of claymation.  It's the kind of stuff that I might throw money at, so I'll be keeping an eye on my wishlist. To be fair, the game feels like it's going to need just a bit extra to keep me hooked, but the free demo seemed worth my time.

If you get a chance to download and play it, let me know your thoughts!  Looks pretty fun.

Happy Dueling!

Hogwarts Legacy -- 6 hours in with Thomas Lionblood

I've had Hogwarts Legacy on my Steam wishlist for a long time, and last week, I suddenly saw that the price had dropped dramatically with a 75% sale (it should still be 24 hours from the time of posting to pick it up if you're interested). 

Everyone I talked to about the game had high praise, so I sprang because . . . $75 quality game for $15 bucks AND a game with actual "happy dueling" in it? Yes please!

You're a Wizard, Thomas!

Yes, Thomas Lionblood has once more been reborn into this new world!  A couple problems there . . . one, I hadn't been sorted yet and, two . . . DUDE, I forgot to give him blue hair!  Why do I do this all the time when making a new Thomas Lionblood character?!

Weeeeee!

After surviving an amazing dragon attack on my way to Hogwarts with my new buddy Professor Fig (and a quick jaunt to the bank and a magical tutorial island), I was finally at the sorting ceremony. From there I was able to suss out the most necromancer-y school of them all, Slytherin.

I'll show you how snake-like I can be!

A couple of hours into it, I was off to the Hogsmeade Village so I could rectify problem number two with my Thomas Lionblood character. Just a quick trip to the magical salon and, voila, I had my blue hair. NOW we could get down to business.

I hear there's a mod that would REALLY make the blue hair pop . . . hmm

. . . and then the troll attacked and life got extra awesome.  They tried to play it off like Ranrock, the evil bad guy goblin of the story, had set up the whole attack, but let's face it, it had to have been the Medieval Times guard sicced on me by the fashion police.

He's clearly targeting my new blue hair

After managing to dodge the fashion police attack, I was sold on the game. That battle with the troll was the first big boss battle, and it felt great! I loved every minute of it and somehow just scraped by. You have to love that moment when a game solidly hooks you. This was it for me.

I'm now a mere six hours in and have taken several classes and explored a good chunk of the winding maze that is Hogwarts. My book of challenges says I've only done about 10% of what's available. I'll be playing this one for a bit it seems.

Overall, this game is just full of that old-world, English wizard charm. I can't really even begin to explain how cool it is just to walk around in this game. It feels like there's some new artistic touch around every corner: a painting that moves and breathes, a suit of armor that snaps to attention, a new side-quest that opens up for you to explore, and on and on. The devil is in the details.

. . . and yes, you CAN pet the cat.

Currently, I've just finished up exploring a huge cavern full of giant spiders to get to a map room that a ghost had guided me to. It's every bit as exciting and fun as it sounds. Inside, there was a ton of loot, and I'm slowly building my Thomas Lionblood wardrobe.  I love these glasses so much I can't even explain it.

Dueling tournament winner? More like dueling fashion winner!

So there it is, I've yet another fantastic game to play and write about. I couldn't be happier with the purchase. 

Happy Dueling!

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2025 -- home green edition

 Yay, it's St. Patrick's Day!  I'm home sick from work!  Stomach bug.

A lot has kind of been rolling through my brain lately. Been thinking about this blog and video games, but not doing a whole lot of writing or playing video games. I really have been in a bad way lately, between sore shoulders, fevering, and stomach bugs, I've been a bit of a green-in-the-stomach mess this St. Patrick's Day.

~~

1- It was Everquest's 26th anniversary yesterday. I actually logged in . . . only to the launch screen, mind you, and then common sense prevailed and I realized that I couldn't stomach it . . . because of my stomach.

That said, man, there is something about this game. They're still making content, and they've released one major content expansion every year the last decade. The thought of resubscribing, doing the whole rent-an-NPC, and doing dailies doesn't really seem awesome.

In 2017, I was two-boxing and managed to get my beastlord up to level 96. In 2021, I dinged level 100 on my Beastlord and never logged in really past that. The level cap in 2025 is 125 and you can buy a level boost up to level 100. The newest expansion is something called The Outer Brood and if you were all in when it launched, you could have bought the premium edition for $139. (I mean, if it's really your one and only game for 26 years, you're probably still in the green for gaming expenses.)

If I resubscribed and played both Everquest and DCUO on my accounts, then yeah, I'd probably give the game at least 5 more levels on my beastlord, but I'm not there yet mentally.

Aha! A screenshot from as recent as 2023!

2- I managed to dump Coin Master, but I'm still playing Brawl Stars pretty consistently. To give you the quick and dirty on that game, we're on Season 36 of the Brawl Pass (called Dark Sands) currently with 16 days left to reach the end of the battle pass.

Possibly the biggest news for Brawl Stars right now is the new presentation of Ranked PvP and a second "ranked pass" you can buy for A LOT of money for Brawl Stars ($25), but runs for 4 months -- so there's value there if you're into buying premium battle passes.

As for me personally, I keep leveling characters that have a hypercharge. My latest two are Poco and Cordelius. Cordelius would actually be my very first legendary character raised to max. I still need to get all his buff slots though. That'll take me another 5,000 gold, so I'll be grinding that for a while.

Poison mushroom assassin boi! That might be what's causing the stomach bug.

3- VR. What to do about VR? Man, I really like VR, but Meta is over here trying to drive me away with really weird choices about Horizons and their premium store. If you read one article about VR News this year, may I be so bold as to point you to this article from Henry Stockdale on UploadVR. 

Anyway, I still want to play VR, it's just this past month my shoulder pain has been stopping me. I'm half way through my planned one-month stint of thrice weekly Chiropractor visits, and things have gotten a touch better, but I'm not there yet.

I might be able to get away with some minigolf. In fact, that's exactly what I'm going to do today! I'm not quite sure if I'll get the new Mount Olympus course yet, but I'm itching to do something . . . calmly fun yet immersive? Look . . . I just don't want my shoulder to hurt.

It just came out like 11 days ago!

4- My kid bought me two random PS3 games for Christmas. You know, it's funny because do these two games look like something I'd be into?

Fracture and Brink . . . I know nothing of these games.

I'm gonna play them though!  I really am!

~~

So, there you go, that's me. I've got a stomach bug over St. Patrick's Day post for you. I'm trying to be non-productively productive while taking the time off. Hopefully, you enjoyed reading my random thoughts as much as I enjoyed typing them out.

Happy Dueling!

Blink your eyes, lose half a month: Brawl Stars, BG3, and more!

Hi readers! Am I the only one who feels like January is flying by like blink your eyes, lose half a month? This is crazy. Maybe it's just because I've been either hard at work, watching hockey (I have a new fascination with the Utah Hockey Club), or playing either Brawl Stars or Baldur's Gate 3. I feel like I've been ignoring my faithful few readers! Sorry! Let me take a second here and catch you all up.

Brawl Stars

I continue to kind of suck at this game. It's alright though--I'm still having fun.

The Brawl Pass this season is called Starr Force and involves more cartoon-esque character skins. I love the little animations they do on these things. Of all the heroes in this video, my favorite obviously is Berry, who recently got a buff and a beautiful, new hypercharge ability.

I am tempted to buy this one just because I'm feeling the gold pinch lately. 

In other news, Buzz Lightyear is still in the game, still overpowered, and I think people are genuinely over it. Once Buzz is gone, the game can return to normal. It was fun for a while, but I think we (the collective we of Brawl Stars Players) can move on here soon. Please? It feels like Buzz overstayed his welcome.

The one good, new thing coming out of the Toy Story promotion is the Pizza Planet deals and events that are now running. You can pick up great little prizes in exchange for the pizza slices you earn, including a brand new brawler character named Meeple, who is . . . a meeple made of meeples. A cheating Meeple at that. Check out his video promotion.

This game is absolutely crazy. I love it. All I need is 15 more pizza slices, which I should earn tomorrow, and then I can unlock the new hero. woot!

Baldur's Gate 3

A couple weeks ago, my old buddy Dylan and I both got the bug to play Baldur's Gate 3 together and the hit team of Moonstar and Avantador were back together. We crashed through the end of Act 2 without much trouble and promptly skipped off to the final act.

Bai Myrkul!

The town of Baldur's Gate proper is pretty great. Where else can you take on a quest to find a flying cat that eats delivery pigeons and discover severed body parts of a clown?  Baldur's Gate is the only place to be for wacky side quests.

Bad dad joke clowns are the worst clowns

As for main quests, we just recently took down a lady who liked to wear meat suits (not Lady Gaga unfortunately), and we seem to be on our way to confronting the last "absolute" God before dealing with the Elder Brain situation.

Meat suits for everyone!

Progressing with Dylan also meant that I could play more of my Everquest Beastlord in BG3. It's my second play-through, and I don't want to get ahead of my original play-through. As for the character itself, Volt's gameplay is definitely more "sneaky" than our pretty straightforward Fireball and Moonbeam spell light shows from when Dylan and I are playing Moonstar and Avantador. 

I suppose that's the influence of having Astarion in my party and being a bit squishy as a Ranger/Monk/Cleric hybrid as a main character.  My bear pet needs a serious upgrade to be honest. It's dying in one or two hits these days. Although for all intents and purposes, playing a real beastlord in Everquest felt that way sometimes when you were just one level away from getting a new pet summoning spell.

Other Stuff

Outside of those two games, my old friends in Team Spode are working through the latest expansion in Guild Wars 2, but my interest in that game has been waning lately. 

I have dipped my toes into Marvel Rivals, and it is in fact giving me HUGE overwatch vibes. I need to get back into it again. Playing Dr. Strange with a superhero team in a 6v6 pvp game was a blast.

Man, he was super fun to play

So there you go!  That's about all I've been playing. I still want to write up an article on the remaining two boards of Bounce Arcade and finally get back into playing more Asgard's Wrath, but while my mother-in-law is still in town, it's been difficult to play any VR. (She stole my office space and I'm stuck in the basement.)  

I'll be writing more as I can!

Happy Dueling!

Happy Thanksgolfing 2023!

Hello fine readers and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it! To those that don't, might I suggest celebrating the alternate holiday of Thanksgolfing? The family and I have been celebrating both actually.

I recently purchased Walkabout Minigolf VR on Oculus, and my youngest and I have been casting our gameplay on to the family TV in the living room. Watching each other mini-golf on the larger screen has actually been pretty great. There's been a lot of taunting, a lot of cheering, and so much hilarious frustration when those missed putts treat us wrong.

The practice course in Walkabout Minigolf VR

I love this VR game. I can't believe it took me this long to buy the game that, to be honest, should be one of the first any person with a new VR headset should purchase. It's a great starter game in VR. It's optimized well with bright, fun colors and supports multiplayer.

Lots of courses to choose from with plenty of DLC courses

Each course comes in two flavors: Easy and Hard. AND, it's not just mini-golf. Within each course is a little game of "find the hidden lost ball," which has you teleporting all over the course looking in the pixelated corners to find all kinds of multicolored balls to use when you play. 

Hitting that perfect shot -- I actually got a hole in one right here!

To unlock Hard mode all you have to do is score under par in Easy mode or find a certain amount of hidden lost balls.  Hard mode features a hidden quest in each world. If you finish the quest, you'll unlock a new putter to play with.

With some time off of work, it's been the perfect way to relax and have fun with the family. 

Looking forward to the new Meow Wolf themed course coming out soon!

Our putting around virtually made us crave some putting around in the real world, and so Uber Wife, my youngest, and I went to our local indoor minigolf course to play a round. 

Took a few fun 360 shots at the course while we were there

I have to say that it was great to see how putting in VR actually improved my son's putting in the real world. Typically he just hits that ball way to hard and in the past often ended up hitting the stroke limit for a hole. This time around, he was right there with us and played well.

Is it Halloween or Thanksgolfing?!

To round things out, I saw a PC game I had wishlisted was available with a discount to purchase (as is the Black Friday way with Steam), so I sprung for it.  I mean, it is Thanksgolfing after all, and there's nothing quite like a good game of Dungeon Golf.

In Dungeon Golf, you mini-put through a wild, trap and monster filled set of dungeon-themed courses as a variety of dungeon dwellers. The comedy value is high on this one as there are two Dungeon Golf sports casters talking about how you're doing throughout. 

A minotaur who yells fore

So far I've only played through course 1 in the single player Golf Quest mode, but I imagine the game is so much more fun in multiplayer mode. In Golf Quest mode you putt around the dungeon while taking on each dungeon course's quest objective. This could be defeat all enemies, open all treasure chests, get to the hole as fast as possible, etc. Getting too close to a monster without hitting it will result in a penalty stroke, so it ends up being a fun puzzle to figure out the best way around the course.

Breaking pots and opening chests in Dungeon Golf will provide you with mana that can power your spells. There are nine different characters you can play as an each has a different spell and special ability that you can cast when you have enough mana. Some characters seem more suited to play in multiplayer than others, but that doesn't stop the game from being fun to just putt around.

I love playing with this kooky steed riding a steed

Do you have a favorite golf game you plan to play on Thanksgolfing today after your regular Turkey Day festivities?  Let's hear about it in the comments. Now that I think about it, man I'd love to break out some Mario Golf Super Rush with the family on the Switch today as well. 

Thanksgolfing is the best!

Happy Dueling!

It's all Palia this and Palia that -- Meanwhile the world burns

Well last night's gaming session was strange. It started out with finally getting to try Palia like all the cool kids since my Beta invite finally went through. 

The question mark is cracking me up. It's like "really?" You want to be called that?

Once I was in, I had that nice feeling of comfort wash over me, like I was back in Free Realms again, but I wasn't. No that was just hopeful dreaming and a slightly reminiscent art style speaking to me.

Super charming art style, right?

I did manage to find a few NPCs, talk to them, chop down some trees, pickaxe some rock, and build the housing basics: a crafting station, a storage box, and a tent. It was very chill and after a long spurt of Diablo 4, it felt nice to do something anti-killing.

Those don't look like mining clothes, but I'm going with it.

After that I logged off and made the family some dinner since the chicken I put out had finished thawing. Man, it's almost too hot outside for grilling, but it was later in the night and at least I was in the shade. 

There was a weird burning smell in the air beyond the grill, and at first I thought . . . am I smelling the fire from Cedar Park area all the way over here? It's been so hot and dry and windy here in central Texas that I'm surprised there aren't MORE fires. With that fire close to home and the fires in Hawaii and elsewhere, It just feels like the world is on fire.

Gotta check the National Incident Map just to see what's up.

Speaking of the world being on fire, after dinner the game was down for maintenance, so I went through and read an article on MassivelyOP about Palia.  The article at Massively is titled First Impressions: Palia is missing the depth MMO life-skillers are hoping for. It was a compare and contrast article between the housing and side activities in most MMOs to Palia and pointed out that Palia lacked a lot of features MMO players have come to expect. In the comments, one poster raised their knife and stabbed 16 bullet pointed times with a detailed list of missing features and lack-luster systems (after some padding about this being a beta from a smaller studio of course).

Honestly, the blood bath just made me want to log on to Palia and enjoy what was there instead of what was missing. I had to sympathize with the developers. Is it truly impossible for people to just enjoy something for what it is? Do we have to line up a 3-year-long feature creep list on smaller companies like that? It's a little crazy that people expect this small group of happy looking developers to perform at the same level with a giant company like Amazon and their game New World. We can't walk into a mom and pop store and expect it to be Costco.

The Smiling Crew at Singularity Six

On the other hand, look, the fact that people cared enough to type about your game in an oversaturated market is amazing. Right? I wonder what caused this new tsunami of attention? It must be the twinge of nostalgia and the right type of game experience people are looking for, but ultimately missing what made them fall in love with the casual MMO in the first place. They smell greatness, but the flavor makes them pine for something more savory and the portion was just too small.

Don't worry, Singularity Six! I'm sure your upcoming schedule of features is amazing. No need to stop forward progress to create a dye system and allow players to sit in chairs. Y'all got this. Now if you're done being down for maintenance, I'll hop back in and play a bit more in between killing stuff in Diablo 4.

Happy Dueling!

Playing Raji and Thinking about India

Yesterday I spent the day, strangely enough, really contemplating India. I thought about its massive population of 1.3 billion people compared to America's 329 million people, and then I just started comparing and contrasting all kinds of things between the two countries. I spent a lot of time thinking about the majority religion there and perhaps began to understand just ever so slightly a bit more?

I really don't know anything, of course. I look at America and all of our nuances that would be hard to explain to someone or even realize they were going on around you until you started a deep dive into the real-life social stratosphere of where we live. Who are you people and why are we like the way we are? Likewise, I'd love to spend some time really getting to know a new friend from India and their culture.

The closest I think I've come was when I was working outsourcing for WIMO and had the opportunity to work with a few professionals from India on a weekly basis. I would try to guide and direct design while monitoring milestone due dates as they made a game with us. I'd slip in a few things after the meetings to try and get to know them better. Questions like what foods do you eat when you celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi? Spoiler alert, it was nothing like what I had read online. I'd also entertain them by coming back each week with a little bit more memorized of how to count to 20 in Hindi. I'm a dumb American. They found it entertaining. The song Ek Do Teen helped a lot. I miss talking them them every week.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time flying over a few towns in India on Google Earth VR. I was surprised to see that major cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad weren't even 3D modeled.  Of course, I could still go into street view and look around, so it's not all lost. Funny to think that Google Earth VR in a way has a caste system of its own . . . not based on any social structure mind you, but probably based on likely markets or what people typically search for? I'm not really trying to make a political statement here though.

The 2-D map overlayed the flat geography of Bengaluru, India

After that, I jumped on to Steam and downloaded and played the demo version of Raji and put the full game on my wishlist. It's an absolutely beautiful, isometric Action Adventure game filled with the mythology of India.

Raji and Shiva

For the most part the demo is just the tutorial, but it's also a lot of story set up, which is done through a kind of puppet show presentation and also through interactable murals as you're scaling the walls.

This has to be my favorite mural so far in Raji

The final boss was a little challenging and it took me a few tries to understand what I needed to do to defeat him, which is always a sign of a good game, right?  I don't want things to be too easy or it doesn't hook me.

Gulp. Here we go again!

Raji isn't without its social problems come to find out. I guess there's some cultural issues that I don't fully understand where mythology was re-written to glorify nationalism and conservativism? There's a Vice article that gets pretty angry about it. On the other hand, you get Steam store reviews like this, where you realize that there's a lot of under representation in a world steeped with mythology.

But they didn't like the combat ;)

At the end of the day my wife asked me to cook burgers out on the grill for the family, and it suddenly felt very American. As it turns out, my oldest returned home from work earlier than I expected, so the hamburger I had slated for myself went to them, which left me needing to make something for myself. I was almost tempted to spend 30 bucks on Indian food delivery from Grub Hub, but instead I turned to my spice cabinet. 

I ended up taking asparagus tips and broccoli and cooking them in a mixture of vegetable oil, curry, ginger, almond flour, ground mustard, salt, onion powder, chili powder, chili flakes, and monk fruit sugar. It filled the air with a really nice aroma, and I gave it a passing grade for my dinner. Throw in some chicken and I would have given the recipe a name of my own and shared it!

At the end of the day, my thoughts turned to the millions of Hindu widows who by tradition can't remarry and take upon themselves social isolation and poverty. It's absolutely heartbreaking to read about, but it's again, something I understand little about with limited sources. There are, of course, several charities you can donate to if you so choose.

I didn't go as far to actually watch a Bollywood production. I just . . . can't really . . . get into those. Although I might cave to watch Mutamestri because of its Batman cameo. 

All in all it was a complex and interesting delve for me over Labor Day Weekend. One that I wouldn't mind repeating again. I'm fascinated with India lately, and I'm on the hunt for more information, games, and experiences. If you have insights, please share.

Happy Dueling! 

Too Old for Tower of Fantasy?

Ohhh man . . . so, listen, I played a lot of Tower of Fantasy yesterday and got to level 22. I noticed a couple things about myself as I was playing, and it was a little distressing for me.

How about we let your guide around the world get infected with evil!

First things first, I enjoyed myself. It felt a lot like a PC-based conversion of a mobile MMO take on Legend of Zelda's Skyward Sword, which, is exactly what I've heard about Genshin Impact. It's a fun formula for a game. It's got crafting food, going through shrines, climbing mountains, riding mounts, cool weapons, short solo dungeons, flying, jump puzzles, gacha stuffs, chibi robot chefs, neat scenery, and mildly entertaining anime story bits . . . what's not to like? And it's free!

. . . and they're giving away a free cube mount because they met their pre-registration goals!

About half-way through though, I had this sneaking suspicion that I was the oldest dude on the server, and it felt weird.  Reading the general chat kind of filled me with a ton of embarrassment. Probably not true, but I'm being honest about that feeling. I almost asked in chat if there were any older people playing that had a guild together, but I figured it would out me. AND LOOK, I typically don't care at all about any of it (I mean, I played Wizard101 and Pirate101 -- IT ISN'T JUST A KIDS GAME, IT'S A FAMILY GAME), but for some strange reason it struck me funny yesterday.

So edgy . . .

Anyway, because of all that, I didn't even try to find other people to play with. I just took it solo and explored the starter island, unlocking all the gates and visiting as many locations as I could. I did get a little lost once the story quests dried up. 

Off to quest with Mr. Schudy. He's a cutie crab-robot dude-y.

I'm still confused about possibly having to get to level 24 before chapter 2 really starts to play? Or possibly it's time gated? Anyway, the game did a great job of telling that there were things I could do other than play on the main story quest. Literally, there was a giant text box pointing to a button saying to click there to see all the other stuff I could do in game.

There really are more things to do!

So let's talk game systems a bit. First thing I have to talk about are the controls on PC. It very much feels like this was built to work on mobile first. Your mouse is not free moving in the game. Perhaps there's a way to set it like this, but it's not default.  Because of this you have to press Enter to free up your mouse to click buttons on the right hand side of the screen, and you have to press Escape to click on things on the left hand side of the screen. 

You may be thinking, what buttons on the left hand side of the screen? Ah ha! The most important button for a blogger is there, the camera button. That's right, there's no default screenshot button (at least that I could find), and that makes sense if the game was designed mobile first. When you do press the camera button, you get a few camera controls that center your character in the action. The resulting picture has your game name, server name, and a logo on it. Um . . . Print Screen and a paint program it is! 

I'm Stingite of the Lunalite Server on the game Tower of Fantasy -- nice view, right?

There's an interesting system in the game called Simulacra where you can win personas in lock boxes and use their skin while playing the game. You woo these simulacra with gifts, which then causes them to awaken, which leads to cool powers. You can also go through special quests that play some of the backstory of the Simulacra. I was pretty happy with the Zero Simulacra and his cool cube of death weapon.

Oo! That Zero SSR Hero pull!  

Oh yeah, by the way, I love Gacha games that have an amazing box opening sequence. The box opening sequence for Tower of Fantasy is absolutely amazing. Check it out.

So, end of the day, I had fun and will probably play this game a little bit more despite my resistance and feeling old. I may even get brave enough to out myself in general chat to find a nice guild of older folks . . . or not. Probably what I should do is go give Genshin Impact a go. Not that I expect it to be filled with an older faction of people, but at least I wouldn't be playing a game called Tower of Fantasy. Yikes the name of this game is so cheesy. 

Happy Dueling!