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Reading: swapping between The Second Death of Locke (physical read), Mr. Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life (on-the-go read), and various FF7 fics.
Listening: for music, Lydia the Bard’s debut album “The Woods”; podcast listening has been switching between Singing Bones and miscellaneous episodes of Oologies.
Playing: A Date With Death—specifically, the Beyond the Bet DLC.
Watching: More or less keeping up with my youtube subscriptions, but otherwise, nothing.
I had a rather gaming-heavy weekend—which helped distract me from some unfun health issues I’ve been dealing with. On Saturday evening, I finished my replay of Final Fantasy VII, my thoughts on which are intended for another entry. Sunday, I spent playing two indie games linked only by the fact that they’re relatively short indie games that are available for free on itch (but have paid versions with added features) that I discovered via browsing the Yuletide tagset. I really enjoyed both of them!
► The first game I picked up was The Dark Queen of Mortholme (here on itch.io), which I played Sunday morning before I went over to my mom’s place for lunch. It’s quite short, and very much meant to be played in a single sitting—my run took me 23 minutes—but it’s quite effective in what it’s doing and the story it tells. I can fully see why someone nominated this for Yuletide, because it’s very much the kind of indie game I think is fun to explore further via fic. ( more beneath the cut, with some mild spoilers )
I also feel like the set-up for this game could make for a fun FF7 AU. Either Sephiroth/Cloud—Cloud is certainly determined enough to try to kill him again and again, though it would necessitate setting aside the importance of Cloud’s initial victory against Sephiroth when Cloud really was at his weakest in canon, which I have mixed feelings about doing—or Zack/Sephiroth, in that I could very much see Zack reaching out again and again to Sephiroth in a way that parallels the way the Hero keeps talking to the Dark Queen. Or maybe something with Zack and Genesis...
► After I got back home from lunch on Sunday, I started on A Date with Death, an otome visual novel where the love interest is the grim reaper. (Here on itch.io) Which I picked up vaguely expecting to drop within ten minutes of playing, and instead kept me glued to my computer from the start of the game until I got my first ending.
For this one, the base game is free—or, more accurately, pay-what-you-want, with a minimum of nothing. If you pay more than a certain amount, you get the expansion, which includes more customization options for the MC and, more importantly, more dialogue choices and an extra ending. There’s also a paid DLC called “Beyond the Bet”, which is essentially is a canon divergence AU spinning off from the second-to-last in-game day, adding extra days to the game, a lot more worldbuilding (my catnip), and four new endings. I… shelled out for all of that, because this game ended up hitting me hard in the id.
( more beneath the cut, including some spoilers )
Listening: for music, Lydia the Bard’s debut album “The Woods”; podcast listening has been switching between Singing Bones and miscellaneous episodes of Oologies.
Playing: A Date With Death—specifically, the Beyond the Bet DLC.
Watching: More or less keeping up with my youtube subscriptions, but otherwise, nothing.
I had a rather gaming-heavy weekend—which helped distract me from some unfun health issues I’ve been dealing with. On Saturday evening, I finished my replay of Final Fantasy VII, my thoughts on which are intended for another entry. Sunday, I spent playing two indie games linked only by the fact that they’re relatively short indie games that are available for free on itch (but have paid versions with added features) that I discovered via browsing the Yuletide tagset. I really enjoyed both of them!
► The first game I picked up was The Dark Queen of Mortholme (here on itch.io), which I played Sunday morning before I went over to my mom’s place for lunch. It’s quite short, and very much meant to be played in a single sitting—my run took me 23 minutes—but it’s quite effective in what it’s doing and the story it tells. I can fully see why someone nominated this for Yuletide, because it’s very much the kind of indie game I think is fun to explore further via fic. ( more beneath the cut, with some mild spoilers )
I also feel like the set-up for this game could make for a fun FF7 AU. Either Sephiroth/Cloud—Cloud is certainly determined enough to try to kill him again and again, though it would necessitate setting aside the importance of Cloud’s initial victory against Sephiroth when Cloud really was at his weakest in canon, which I have mixed feelings about doing—or Zack/Sephiroth, in that I could very much see Zack reaching out again and again to Sephiroth in a way that parallels the way the Hero keeps talking to the Dark Queen. Or maybe something with Zack and Genesis...
► After I got back home from lunch on Sunday, I started on A Date with Death, an otome visual novel where the love interest is the grim reaper. (Here on itch.io) Which I picked up vaguely expecting to drop within ten minutes of playing, and instead kept me glued to my computer from the start of the game until I got my first ending.
For this one, the base game is free—or, more accurately, pay-what-you-want, with a minimum of nothing. If you pay more than a certain amount, you get the expansion, which includes more customization options for the MC and, more importantly, more dialogue choices and an extra ending. There’s also a paid DLC called “Beyond the Bet”, which is essentially is a canon divergence AU spinning off from the second-to-last in-game day, adding extra days to the game, a lot more worldbuilding (my catnip), and four new endings. I… shelled out for all of that, because this game ended up hitting me hard in the id.
( more beneath the cut, including some spoilers )