![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/2098/2021/9ad70eb598.jpg\")
š® I pre-ordered āSuper Mario Wonderā tonight after my daughter reminded me it is coming out soon. I canāt wait to play it. I wonder (no wordplay intended) when I will have time to play it.
\n", "date_published": "2023-10-03T22:26:52-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2023/10/03/i-preordered-super.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2023/09/20/pico-is-so.html", "title": "š® PICO-8 is so cool", "content_html": "I have known about the PICO-8 fantasy console for a while, due to finding a PICO-8 item in Celeste, but I learned this week that all the game tools you need to create games with it (including a music editor and a sprite editor) are built in. You can also view the code of any published game, so you can change it, edit it, and even publish it. It is so cool! I bought a license this week. I think my son will like to create games with it.
\n", "date_published": "2023-09-20T08:30:42-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2023/09/20/pico-is-so.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/07/15/todays-listen-the.html", "content_html": "š® Todayās listen: The London Suede and Similar Artists Station on Apple Music. This is probably a personalized BritPop playlist. Iām discovering a lot of album cuts I didnāt know about or bother listening to in the 1990s. Also, I now think Blur holds up far better than Oasis.
\n", "date_published": "2022-07-15T11:26:22-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/07/15/todays-listen-the.html", "tags": ["Audiophile","Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/07/07/ori-and-the.html", "title": "š® Ori and the Will of the Wisps", "content_html": "Over this past week I played through Ori and the Will of the Wisps on the Nintendo Switch. It is a challenging Metroidvania with beautiful graphics and a moving story. I highly recommend itāespecially if you enjoy platforming challenges. The way that Ori moves, jumps, bashes off enemies, and launches into the air is pure delight.
\nI had purchased the game almost two years ago when it first came out, and abandoned my save file because the game kept crashing. I had hoped the game would be patched so it no longer crashed, but that did not happen. On this play-through, the game crashed five or six times. Fortunately, I didnāt lose any progress when it did.
\n", "date_published": "2022-07-07T18:33:45-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/07/07/ori-and-the.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/04/28/knotwords-a-new.html", "title": "š® Knotwords: A New Word Game From Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger", "content_html": "Today I found out about a new game by Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger, who created one of my favorite iOS games, Good Sudoku. It is a word game called Knotwords. Playing it is a little like playing crossword constructor. You fit letters into an empty crossword grid so that they make words. The tutorial and first few levels are very easy, but the game gets more challengingāand more funāonce you pass them. I am enjoying it so far, though I have not yet decided if I will purchase the full version.
\n", "date_published": "2022-04-28T22:16:31-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/04/28/knotwords-a-new.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/04/04/children-of-morta.html", "title": "š® Children of Morta", "content_html": "Over the past week, I played through Children of Morta on my Nintendo Switch. It is a Roguelike game built around combat and dungeon crawling, with several gimmicks to keep it interesting. There is a strong story element and a very enthusiastic narrator; unfortunately, I didnāt think the story amounted to much in the end.
\nOverall, I enjoyed it. It reminded me a little bit of the Diablo games, though my memory of those games is quite hazy.
\nAt first I found it nearly impossible to beat the first dungeonās boss. I could reach the boss from my very first run, but I could not defeat it. I discovered that you have to grind and level up your charactersā stats. Once I did that many, many times, my characters were strong enough to kill that boss, and basically everything else that came afterward.
\nI very much appreciated that you did not have to mash the attack button endlessly during combat. Instead you rock the right analog stick in the direction you want to loose your arrows or swing your sword. It works very well, much like a twin-stick shooter.
\nWhile the game is fun, it gave me some frustrating moments, too. I experienced a game-breaking bug several times near the end of the game. Sound effects would loop and then cut out entirely; eventually the game would crash. I lost one of my runs entirely due to this bug. It hit me again during my fight with the final boss, which really put me on edge; fortunately, the game did not crash and I was able to complete it anyway.
\n", "date_published": "2022-04-04T21:29:11-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/04/04/children-of-morta.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/03/22/classic-mac-games.html", "title": "š® Classic Mac games I used to enjoy", "content_html": "During my freshman year in college, my friend Saul and I played a Pong-inspired game on his Mac called Mortal Pongbat. It is basically Pong with lasers and bombs you can use to destroy your opponentās paddle. As a two-player game, it was a ton of fun.
\nWe also would play a one-player Centipede clone called Apeiron. It was frenetic and had some humorous sound effects.
\nWhile these games look very dated today, they were a lot of fun in 1995.
\n", "date_published": "2022-03-22T18:25:32-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/03/22/classic-mac-games.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/03/21/i-played-through.html", "content_html": "š® I played through through Celeste this week. I really enjoyed the challenge until the last couple levels, when I had to turn Assist Mode on to get through them. I am glad I made it up to the top of the mountain, no matter how I got there.
\n", "date_published": "2022-03-21T21:27:16-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/03/21/i-played-through.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/03/10/chesscom-isnt-just.html", "title": "Chess.com isnāt just for blitz games", "content_html": "I play chess on Chess.com, thanks to a challenge request from Andrew Canion a while back. We play ā1 Dayā games, which are essentially correspondence chess. It is great fun playing against Andrew, but I donāt get to play with him in real time because we live on different sides of the planet. To see if I can beat an opponentāwho is not one of my kidsāin real time, I have played a number of blitz games, which are 10-minute games. Unfortunately, I always lose them badly or lose on time. The clock stresses me out, which makes the games not much fun at all.
\nIt did not occur to me before today that I could start such a ā1 Dayā game against a random opponent on Chess.com just as easily as I could start a blitz game. I did so tonight, and now I have another long, slow game going. I am happy to have found another way to play chess against people at my level that wonāt stress me out.
\n", "date_published": "2022-03-10T22:11:29-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/03/10/chesscom-isnt-just.html", "tags": ["Chess","Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/03/09/i-bought-games.html", "content_html": "š® I bought 992 games today from Itch.io: the Bundle for Ukraine. Now my backlog is over 1,000. š I (selfishly) wanted to pick up cross-platform, DRM-free versions of Celeste and Baba Is You for cheap. The rest is gravy.
\n", "date_published": "2022-03-09T22:37:59-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/03/09/i-bought-games.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/03/09/new-super-mario.html", "title": "š® New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe", "content_html": "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is one of the disappointments in my Nintendo Switch collection. I had hoped it would bring me the same joy that Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. did in the past. Instead, I found it punishingly difficult, due to devilishly positioned enemies and a physics engine tailored to make the characters slip off platforms all the time. (Donāt even get me started about the Ghost Houses.) It seems to have been made for players who are so good at Mario games that they are absolutely sick of them and are interested only in an insane challenge.
\nThe developers must have known it was too difficult, because they added two āeasy-modeā characters and an option to have Luigi show a sample run of any level and allow you to skip it at the end. Despite these aides, on my first play-though, I stalled out in the middleāI literally could not get through the next level, whichever path I tookāand gave it up for a couple years.
\nLast week, I was thinking about how poorly I fared at New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. I wondered it the reason I found it so difficult was that my Mario skills had atrophied. To test that, I played through Super Mario World, which I have not played in about 15 years. I was able to blow right through it (the Star World levels notwithstanding), so I donāt think my Mario skills are entirely the problem. I expected Super Mario World-level difficulty, but New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is a much harder game.
\nA few days ago I decided I was up for the challenge again, and would play and finish New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe this time, hell or high water. I would not try to collect the three star coins in each level. I would not try hard to find the gameās plentiful secrets. I would even play as the second-easiest character, Toadette, the whole time and use Luigiās sample runs to skip levels. I am not trying to collect star coins or trying hard to find secrets; I am simply trying to reach the end of each level.
\nEven with this plan, I have not yet finished it. I am almost at Peachās castle, which is the last set of levels. I am glad that I finally discovered many of the colorful, creative, and clever bits that the game designers put into the game; in total, however, they fail to delight me. Iām sure that New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is a good game, but it is not a good game for me. I am not sure I will ever play the game again after I beat it.
\n", "date_published": "2022-03-09T15:29:12-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/03/09/new-super-mario.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2022/01/20/steamworld-dig.html", "title": "š® Steamworld Dig", "content_html": "Earlier this week I played through Steamworld Dig on the Nintendo Switch. I bought it for a song during Nintendoās New Years sale, and I found it well worth it. It is a high-quality game with a funāand briefāgame loop. First you explore the mine and collect treasure, then you return to town to sell the treasure and purchase upgrades. There isnāt any more to it, unfortunately, but the gameplay is fun nonetheless.
\nA while ago I played through the sequel, Steamworld Dig 2, which bests the first game in every way imaginable, including turning it into a full-fledged Metroidvania. If can pick up only one of the two, Steamworld Dig 2 is the one to get.
\n", "date_published": "2022-01-20T21:38:04-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2022/01/20/steamworld-dig.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/12/28/my-nintendo-switch.html", "title": "š® My Nintendo Switch game haul and backlog", "content_html": "If it werenāt for the SwitchUp YouTube channel, I would have played little more than Breath of the Wild and Hollow Knight on my Switch. Now I watch their videos to monitor Nintendo eShop sales weekly, and have developed quite a backlog of games. In the past few monthsāmostly after Black FridayāI acquired (all on sale and usually for $5-10 per game, with the exception of Metroid Dread), the following games:
\nI have enough games to keep me busy for a couple years. I could crack a joke and say that I have a game-buying problem, but I am actually happy with this situation. Gaming has become my primary source of entertainment this year. I have fun playing the games I have purchased. And I have a lot of great games in my library to look forward to.
\n", "date_published": "2021-12-28T22:02:47-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/12/28/my-nintendo-switch.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/12/14/shantae-and-the.html", "title": "š® Shantae and the Seven Sirens", "content_html": "Over the past week I played through Shantae and the Seven Sirens, which is one of the many games I bought on sale after Thanksgiving.
\nOnce I started it, I realized that I already played part of it. In 2019, it (well, a small part of it) was a launch title on Apple Arcade. At the time, I, like most Apple nerds, got the Apple Arcade free trial. I did not click with Apple Arcade. The only game I liked on it at the time was Shantae and the Seven Sirens. That version was my introduction to the Shantae series. After my Apple Arcade trial ended, I bought the next best thing, Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero, on the Switch.
\nBecause I had played part of it in 2019, I decided to play it this time using the original 2019 level of difficulty, rather than in the newer ādefinitive modeā with ābalanced difficulty.ā That may have been a mistake, because the game posed no challenge at all. Healing items and magic refills abound, and about 20% of the way through you get a heading dance (which is like a magic spell) that makes healing almost entirely unnecessary.
\nWhile not challenging, it was a lot of fun. The game has cute and colorful graphics, a funny and entertaining script, snappy controls, and runs smooth as butter on the Switch.
\nAfter I beat it, I started a new game under the ādefinitive modeā. Right away I found it much harderāharder than I expected, to be honest. I will likely play through it again at this higher difficulty setting and see how I fare.
\n", "date_published": "2021-12-14T22:33:44-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/12/14/shantae-and-the.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/12/08/gris.html", "title": "š® Gris", "content_html": "Earlier this week I played (twice!) through Gris. It is a beautiful platformer that represents a metaphorical journey of a girl overcoming grief or depression. It is the kind of game that is meant to be an emotional experience rather than a challenge. In fact, it is impossible to lose. What struck me about it is how beautiful it is. The graphics are painterly and the music perfectly fits with the gameās themes and action.
\n", "date_published": "2021-12-08T21:15:30-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/12/08/gris.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/12/01/i-bought-myself.html", "content_html": "š® I bought myself a ton of Nintendo Switch games that were on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. My backlog is embarrassingly extensive now. I must have a yearās worth of games to play. Perhaps I can stop buying them for a while.
\n", "date_published": "2021-12-01T00:58:53-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/12/01/i-bought-myself.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/11/17/shantae.html", "title": "š® Shantae", "content_html": "I started playing Shantae on the Game Boy Color last night, and was blown away by its ambition and the technical prowess it exhibits. Although its resolution is indeed very low, it still offers every bit of the charm of the recent Shantae games, along with satisfying gameplay, great music, and fun character designs. It is hard to believe it was written for an 8-bit system, because it exhibits tricks like parallax scrolling backgrounds that I know were possible until the 16-bit era began. It is a gem, and is another reason Iām happy I got into retro gaming this fall.
\n", "date_published": "2021-11-17T22:35:13-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/11/17/shantae.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/11/15/i-beat-metroid.html", "content_html": "š® I beat Metroid Zero Mission tonight. It is a fun game, and much better than the original game (Metroid) that is is a remake of.
\n", "date_published": "2021-11-15T22:50:17-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/11/15/i-beat-metroid.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/11/13/i-am-enjoying.html", "content_html": "š® I am enjoying my retro handheld very much. Yesterday I played through Super Mario Land for the first time since the 1990s. I also got through about 50% of Metroid Zero Mission, which I donāt think I ever played before. Some of my enjoyment is nostalgic, but most of it is because I have been playing some fantastic games.
\n", "date_published": "2021-11-13T12:20:41-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/11/13/i-am-enjoying.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/11/06/why-i-have.html", "title": "Why I have been playing so many video games lately", "content_html": "Looking back on last week, I played a lot of video games. A lot more than usual actually. Itās a sort of thing I do when my brain is so tired I canāt do anything else, not even focus on a TV show. I have been working really hard writing system walkthroughs or performing data analysis during the day, and working on a presentation and an article for publication in my companyās newsletter during the evenings. I realized that I have been staving off mental exhaustion by escaping into the world of PokĆ©mon or Metroid in the late night hours before I go to bed. This might keep happening for the next few weeks. It is an absolute sprint for me until December 3, Iām afraid. At least at the end of the year we get the last week off.
\n", "date_published": "2021-11-06T20:11:31-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/11/06/why-i-have.html", "tags": ["Journal","Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/11/05/i-finally-beat.html", "content_html": "š® I finally beat Metroid Dread! I thought it would be impossible, but I persevered. What a cool game!
\n", "date_published": "2021-11-05T20:55:54-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/11/05/i-finally-beat.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/11/05/years-late-to.html", "title": "š® 25 years late to PokĆ©mon", "content_html": "My retro handheld, perhaps understandably but not by design, has become a dedicated PokĆ©mon machine. I never played a PokĆ©mon game before last week, and honestly never understood their appeal. Last night, when my brain was too tired for anything else, I had fun grinding away at PokĆ©mon Yellow for hours. I am missing out on the gameās social features like trading and battling. It must have been amazing to have been a little kid with a Game Boy, a link cable, and like-minded friends.
\n
I may never beat Metroid Dreadās final boss, Raven Beak. Iām just not fast enough on the controller, and I donāt have the time or patience to āgit gudā. Thatās OK with me. I could never beat the true final boss of Hollow Knight, The Radiance, either, and have played through that game, start-to-nearly-the-finish many times. Playing through the game is fun; finishing it is optional for me.
\n", "date_published": "2021-11-04T10:46:09-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/11/04/giving-up-on.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/10/22/i-have-been.html", "content_html": "š® I have been loving the new Metroid game and it has been kicking my ass. š It is the toughest and most fun game Iāve played since Hades and Hollow Knight.
\n", "date_published": "2021-10-22T23:31:02-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/10/22/i-have-been.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/10/20/startinf-out-with.html", "title": "š® Starting out with retro gaming", "content_html": "I spent some time today trying to set up my new Retro handheld gaming system. I flashed ArkOS on it and copied some games over. I had to find YouTube videos to help me configure it correctly. I hope to figure it out well enough to give the cool, inexpensive handhelds to my kids someday.
\n", "date_published": "2021-10-20T22:03:44-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/10/20/startinf-out-with.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/10/18/i-ordered-a.html", "title": "š® I ordered a retro handheld š ", "content_html": "I was very excited early this month for the release of Metroid Dread so I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube of gamers playing through classic Metroid games. Eventually the YouTube algorithm led me to learn about retro handheld devices. These are emulators that can play games from many older systems. I quickly got obsessed with them and ordered one, an Anbernic RG351MP, despite my history of not really liking many of the classic games available on my Nintendo Switch. So, it may be a waste of money, or something I can eventually give to one of my kids, or it will be something I really love. I am looking forward to setting it up, tweaking its firmware, and playing some classic games.
\n", "date_published": "2021-10-18T21:16:09-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/10/18/i-ordered-a.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/10/09/metroid-dread-is.html", "content_html": "š® Metroid Dread is really fun. I spent a couple hours on it last night. It is really fun. It is weird not having the morph ball right from the start, though, and you pretty much have to figure out wall jumping is possible on your own.
\n", "date_published": "2021-10-09T12:17:08-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/10/09/metroid-dread-is.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/10/08/metroid-dread.html", "title": "š® Metroid Dread", "content_html": "My copy of Metroid Dread was just delivered. I am so excited to play it, but Iām not sure when Iāll get to start. Iāve got to help out the kids to bed and plan to watch the season finale of Ted Lasso tonight as well.
\nIn anticipation for the new game, over the past few weeks, I played through about most of Metroid and Super Metroid to get back into playing shape for it. The first game is pretty rough, but Super Metroid is a masterpiece. I played through it on a 3-day rental when I was a teenager, and always remembered how great it was. I also dug up my old Metroid Fusion cartridge. I own it but donāt don’t think that my hands are up for playing it anymore on my old Game Boy Advance.
\nAnyway, Dread is waiting for me, and my backlog of Switch games (I am a sucker for sales) will have to wait a little longer.
\n", "date_published": "2021-10-08T20:03:46-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/10/08/metroid-dread.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/09/24/i-played-too.html", "content_html": "I played too much Scott Pilgrim vs. the World this week, and have been rewarded with wrist pain in my left hand. I should have known I was overdoing it because my typing became more and more inaccurate as the week progressed.
\n", "date_published": "2021-09-24T20:21:02-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/09/24/i-played-too.html", "tags": ["Journal","Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/09/22/first-you-were.html", "title": "š® āFirst you were ve-gone, but now you will be gone.ā", "content_html": "On a whim this weekend I purchased the beat āem up game Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World for the Nintendo Switch. It was an impulse purchase of a game I had not heard of and didnāt know was any good. I have been wanting to play a brawler for a while, but it is a genre I have not played since I was a kid, so I was not sure I would still enjoy it. I have been eyeing, but have been reluctant to spend $30 of $25 on, River City Girls and Streets of Rage 4 for weeks now. I havenāt played a game in that genre since I was a kid, and as an adult I am terrible at a lot of the games I used to excel at (Iām looking at you, Mario!) so I was not sure if I could button-mash fast enough to play such games. $25 or more is too much to spend on a game that is too hard for me to play. While I dithered about a purchase, I spent some time playing NES versions of the Double Dragon games and River City Ransom, but found those games are too primitive to be much fun for me anymore.
\nThe Scott Pilgrim game was on sale for a stupidly low price ($7.49 or something), so I picked it up. To my surprise and delight, it is awesome. It has a colorful pixel art style that mimics the Scott Pilgrim comics. Its level design, character design, and animations show a lot of humor and attention to the source material. The chiptune soundtrack is really catchy. Play controls are easy to pick up. It starts out really hard, but you can replay levels to level up your character (i.e., lean new moves), and earn money to upgrade your characterās stats (strength, defense, etc.), which makes the game easier. It is kind of grind-y, at least for a conservative, low-skilled player like me, but the grind is fun.
\nBasically, everything about the video game does justice to the source material. Playing it caused me to want to reread the graphic novels, which I started to do yesterday. Scott Pilgrim, in comics form, is weird, surreal, and a real messāyou know, a perfect reflection of the early twenties and late teens lives of its characters. The characters, plot, and themes of the book, are complex, messy, flawed, and not fully formed. Nobody is a role model. Nobody is mature. Reality itself is warped for them. It makes no sense that Scott goes into video game mode and kills his girlfriendās exes. Is that a metaphor? Only kind of. Youāre just not expected to take it seriously. Itās all problematicālike life, I guess. I donāt really think it is deep (maybe you would if you were much younger than me), but it is really good at stirring up complicated thoughts and emotions in me about how messy life is. During this re-read, I have thought about how I might judge people who havenāt figured their lives out yet, or overlook the good qualities in someone like that. My feelings about those things are different now than they were when I first read the series about ten years ago.
\nI also watched a couple clips of the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World movie on YouTube, too, and am trying to find a new respect for it. I saw the movie only once, after I had read all the graphic novels, and absolutely_hated_ it because my favorite parts of the graphic novelsāthe ones involving character growthāare mostly not depicted in the movie. It does have a stunning cast, though; itās unbelievable that all those young actors who became so big later on are in the same movie.
\n", "date_published": "2021-09-22T21:16:22-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/09/22/first-you-were.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/05/30/i-started-another.html", "content_html": "š® I started another run at Hollow Knight after quite a while away from it. I have missed a step or twoā¦ š
\n", "date_published": "2021-05-30T23:55:08-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/05/30/i-started-another.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/05/29/i-have-been.html", "content_html": "š® I have been very much into playing Good Sudoku again lately. I am trying to master its Pro level, where the puzzles start to get very tricky. I am trying to learn how to spot the Y-wing pattern, but still need to resort to hints quite a lot to find them in the grid.
\n", "date_published": "2021-05-29T10:44:19-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/05/29/i-have-been.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/05/20/lossless-music-discussion.html", "title": "Lossless Music Discussion on ATP Podcast", "content_html": "The latest episode of Accidental Tech Podcast has a great discussion about lossless music, which is coming to Apple Music next month.
\n", "date_published": "2021-05-20T12:58:30-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/05/20/lossless-music-discussion.html", "tags": ["Audiophile","Gaming","TV","Keyboards"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/05/18/webex-has-virtual.html", "title": "WebEx has virtual backgrounds?!", "content_html": "A software update at work pushed out the virtual backgrounds feature for WebEx. Since my home officeāat least the part of it that is behind me and not under my controlā is a mess, I enabled it.
\nSadly, it looks pretty awful. The background mostly leaves a halo around me un-obscured; sometimes it clips portions of my face or shoulder off. I have a very high-end laptop and a āvery goodā Logitech webcam (all webcams are terrible, I think), so I have concluded that WebExās technology is way behind Zoomās, which does the virtual backgrounds flawlessly. I think I will leave virtual backgrounds on, for privacy reasons, and hope no one minds the weird visual side effects.
\n", "date_published": "2021-05-18T09:47:26-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/05/18/webex-has-virtual.html", "tags": ["Audiophile","Gaming","TV","Keyboards"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/04/19/the-sequence.html", "title": "The Sequence š®", "content_html": "Yesterday I decided to re-play a game I loved a few years ago called [The Sequence]. It is a puzzle game where you, essentially, build a machine with various component parts to move a ball (well, the game calls it a ābinary cellā) from one part of the screen to another. It sounds simple, and it starts out fairly simple, but it becomes very challenging as you progress. Itās the sort of game a programmer, or anyone who enjoyed Human Resource Machine would enjoy.
\n", "date_published": "2021-04-19T11:17:09-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/04/19/the-sequence.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/04/18/fez.html", "title": "Fez š®", "content_html": "I am delighted that I discovered a video game that is new to the Nintendo Switch, but not at all new to the world, called Fez. This is the gameās official blurb:
\n\n\nGomez is a 2D creature living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and space. Use your ability to navigate 3D structures from 4 distinct classic 2D perspectives.
\n
It is a 2D puzzle platformer where your character can rotate the environment left or right 90 degrees at a time, but you always interact with the environment in two dimensions. Some of the puzzles are quite challenging, but I think that the most hidden secrets that you can get from solving the hardest puzzles are all optional to completing the game. Itās a charming game, and easily my favorite Switch game of this year so far.
\n", "date_published": "2021-04-18T20:56:26-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/04/18/fez.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2021/03/07/aeterna-noctis.html", "title": "Aeterna Noctis", "content_html": "This game looks 100% like a Hollow Knight rip-off, but maybe it will be the best Hollow Knight rip-off there is. It seems to marry Hollow Knight environments, character movement, and platforming challenges to Castlevania character- and background design. As long as it doesn’t take in the Castlevania-style grinding, it could be very fun.
\nThe more Metroidvania games I play, the more I think that Hollow Knight is the best one ever. Platforming and combat are fast and fluid, it nails the difficulty curve, it doesn’t require grinding (unlike the Castlevania games), it allows for slow or fast play, and so on. I could go on and on about it.
\n", "date_published": "2021-03-07T19:55:13-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2021/03/07/aeterna-noctis.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/12/25/ori-and-the.html", "title": "š® Ori and the Will of the Wisps is Great", "content_html": "I got a chance to play a few hours of Ori and the Will of the Wisps over the past couple days, and think it is absolutely amazing. While it definitely rehashes some of the same scenarios and story beats from the first game, the gameplay is actually significantly more complex and rewarding. I think I’m benefiting from my experience with the first game, which I played through twice, but I have found the sequel to be a little more forgiving in its difficulty.
\nIn general, it is wonderful to have some fun video games to retreat to in this very stressful pandemic time. I do recognize that I need to turn away from gaming a little bit more than I have been, and move back to more productive activities in my “free time.” Games like Ori make that just a little bit harder.
\n", "date_published": "2020-12-25T12:22:44-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/12/25/ori-and-the.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/12/17/i-am-happy.html", "content_html": "š® I am happy to see that Hades is getting some “game of the year” nods, from Polygon and from Chiam Gartenberg of The Verge. It is easily my favorite game since Hollow Knight.
\n", "date_published": "2020-12-17T10:13:00-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/12/17/i-am-happy.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/10/29/i-played-the.html", "content_html": "š® I played the Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity demo for about an hour and a half and left it feeling nauseated due to the poor frame rate. The game was kind of fun, but the frame rate was really bad! I am doubtful now that I will shell out $60 for the full version. š
\n", "date_published": "2020-10-29T21:28:10-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/10/29/i-played-the.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/10/22/after-about-runs.html", "content_html": "š® After about 20 runs, I finally beat Hades tonight. What a fun game.
\n", "date_published": "2020-10-22T22:21:18-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/10/22/after-about-runs.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/09/16/to-see-if.html", "content_html": "š® To see if I should buy the “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” game for the Nintendo Switch, I started playing “Super Mario Odyssey” again last week. I beat the game (which is, basically, completing only about a third of the objectives) and have enjoyed, somewhat, the post-game experience. I have concluded, though, that I am terrible at Mario games. Lots of the platforming sections are frustrating for me, maybe because I didn’t grow up with 3D gaming and can’t get used to the perspective. Perhaps the Zelda “Hyrule Warriors” sequel would be more my speed.
\n", "date_published": "2020-09-16T12:02:37-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/09/16/to-see-if.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/09/02/after-about-a.html", "content_html": "After about a month I am still playing several games of Good Sudoku by Zack Gage every day.ļæ¼ I highly recommend it!ļæ¼
\n", "date_published": "2020-09-02T21:24:25-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/09/02/after-about-a.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/07/30/i-was-amazed.html", "content_html": "I was amazed this week to learn that my Game Boy Advance, which is nearly 18 years old still holds a charge and works perfectly. (The screen sure is dim, though, but maybe it always was.) My Sony PSP, which is nowhere near as old, is completely dead.
\n", "date_published": "2020-07-30T21:52:27-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/07/30/i-was-amazed.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2020/07/05/i-bought-axiom.html", "content_html": "šŗ I bought Axiom Verge for the Nintendo Switch tonight and really like it so far. It is giving me Super Metroid vibes!
\n", "date_published": "2020-07-05T00:15:52-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2020/07/05/i-bought-axiom.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/10/28/i-got-the.html", "content_html": "š® I got the Xbox Wireless Controller that I ordered today, after a weekend of telling myself I will cut back on the hours I spend on gaming (only a few per week, but still).
\n", "date_published": "2019-10-28T15:08:37-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/10/28/i-got-the.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/10/25/hollow-knight-kicked.html", "content_html": "š® “Hollow Knight” kicked my ass this evening. I tried to beat The Trial of the Fool for about an hour, to no avail. The game was so much easier when I was playing it for a couple hours every night. I lost a lot of muscle memory since I stopped.
\n", "date_published": "2019-10-25T22:02:03-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/10/25/hollow-knight-kicked.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/10/25/i-just-used.html", "content_html": "š® I just used the last of my birthday money to purchase an Xbox wireless controller, which I can use with my Windows 10 PC, my Apple TV, and my iPad Pro. I’ve had my eye on one since Apple Arcade came out. I’m starting to eye Steam, too, for more metroidvania-style games.
\n", "date_published": "2019-10-25T15:30:34-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/10/25/i-just-used.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/10/25/i-started-a.html", "content_html": "š® I started a third playthrough of Hollow Knight last night. I am eagerly awaiting its announced sequel, Silksong, and don’t know what other game to buy that will scratch the same itch for me. It is such a well-crafted game, and its bosses are still quite challenging to me.
\n", "date_published": "2019-10-25T11:39:50-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/10/25/i-started-a.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/09/21/i-will-probably.html", "content_html": "š® I will probably hold off on trying Apple Arcade until it is available on Apple TV. I prefer gaming with a controller and on a big screen. I am currently very much into my Nintendo Switch again, and donāt need more games right now, either.
\n", "date_published": "2019-09-21T21:17:59-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/09/21/i-will-probably.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/09/17/i-wonder-why.html", "content_html": "š® I wonder why no one is saying much about “Oceanhorn 2” in regards to Apple Arcade. I don’t have early access to Apple Arcade, so i can’t find out myself, but that is the game I was most looking forward to out of all of them.
\n", "date_published": "2019-09-17T09:49:14-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/09/17/i-wonder-why.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/08/31/i-should-probably.html", "content_html": "š® I should probably stop playing āBreath of the Wildā (Iām in the middle of my second play-through) because it keeps me up too late at night. That may be a promise to myself that I canāt really keep, though.
\n", "date_published": "2019-08-31T10:41:02-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/08/31/i-should-probably.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2019/05/02/the-biggest-lie.html", "content_html": "š® The biggest lie I told myself this week is “I will not play ‘Hollow Knight’ for hours tonight”. Well, 10 PM through 1 AM last night were lost to an enjoyable romp through late-game bosses and achievements.
\n", "date_published": "2019-05-02T09:43:29-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2019/05/02/the-biggest-lie.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2018/11/05/201723.html", "content_html": "š® I have been playing a lot of Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey the past couple weeks. I am very glad I bought them. It’s good to have escapist fun for a change.
\n", "date_published": "2018-11-05T16:17:23-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2018/11/05/201723.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2018/08/30/transistor.html", "title": "š® Transistor", "content_html": "I finished the game Transistor last night. I played it on my iPad Pro with a MFi controller.
\nIt was a fun game with a great atmosphere (setting, sound design, visual design, etc.) but the story was a bit too opaque for my taste. You had to dig into the user interface and read a bunch of optional stuff to get a better idea of what is going on ints its disintegrating cyberpunk world.
\nIt ended kind of abruptly and had a tragic ending, which is unusual, but maybe not for the game studio. Their prior game, Bastion, also had kind of a downer ending.
\nI’m not sure if I will do a replay of Transister, but I’m happy that I played it.
\n", "date_published": "2018-08-30T09:10:38-04:00", "url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2018/08/30/transistor.html", "tags": ["Gaming"] }, { "id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2018/05/18/while-i-think.html", "content_html": "While I think I want a Nintendo Switch, Iām trying to make due for now with what I already haveāan iPad Pro and a SteelSeries Nimbus controller. Iām not sure I even want to commit the time to gaming, but I am curious about the latest Mario and Zelda games.
\n![](\"http://mjdescy.micro.blog/uploads/2018/9800db785e.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2018-05-18T10:16:15-04:00",
"url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2018/05/18/while-i-think.html",
"tags": ["Gaming"]
},
{
"id": "http://mjdescy.micro.blog/2018/01/06/i-dont-even.html",
"content_html": "I donāt even wish I was actually this good at solving The New York Times Mini Crossword Puzzle.
\n![](\"http://mjdescy.micro.blog/uploads/2018/d5a192e283.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2018-01-06T09:34:37-04:00",
"url": "https://micro.mjdescy.me/2018/01/06/i-dont-even.html",
"tags": ["Gaming"]
}
]
}