Do you want to know how I know what I did during the week? I don’t really write bits of this day after day, I simply scroll through my gallery and see what pictures I took. Most of the time there are photos of games or devices. Every once in a while I take an actual photo of some place I went to. This is extremely rare of me, but it does happen sometimes.
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🎨 Having way too much fun editing and creating wallpapers based on manga panels for my Xteink X4 e-reader. There are a lot of tools out there to make the task easier as well, but I created a lot of them with old school GIMP too.
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🚌 Missed the bus to work once and had to take a detour to get a ride for it, it was a fun little adventure but I got there in time, not much else to say.
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🧑💻 Did a bunch of small changes to my website that make things very fun! Feel free to check the blogpost I wrote about it.
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✍️ Kept up with my cursive writing while taking notes at church and other small things like that.
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✈️ My siblings who study on a different city are now here due to the Easter vacation! There are a lot of plans aheads of us!
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🍜 Went to have dinner out again, this time to a korean restaurant! I enjoyed my time once more, but my sister did not like her food at all and there was a bit of a scene with the manager and such. That was kind of a mess but we didn’t have to pay for the meal in the end.
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🐈 During the weekend I played a couple of rounds of Exploding Kittens with friends! We ran out of steam rather quickly though.
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🃏 For some reason, the soundtrack for Balatro is not available on Bandcamp, so I bought it from Steam instead.
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🎮 I also made the mistake of buying Balatro for my phone… oh no…
Reading
Completed
- Chrono Trigger - A book about my favorite game of all time, the second in the Boss Fights Books series. A critique, a memoir, some comparisons to society today and that kind of thing. I enjoyed the read and was glad to know I can handle non-fiction books. I really enjoyed the interviews with Ted Woolsey and Tom Slattery, who brought the game for an English audience. I don’t know if I’ll write a full review of it, and I really don’t have a lot to comment on. I liked it as an informative piece but not much else! If you love the game like me, you will have a nice time and learn a few things. Don’t read it without playing the game.
Ongoing
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Strange Dogs - I have to admit, I only read like three more pages of this and then got distracted by other things, whoops.
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Fly Me To The Moon - Up to chapter 173. After many months, maybe years, I finally returned to this rom-com manga, and I’m happy to say it holds up. A few dozen chapters ago an incredible plot twist and reveal happened that altered the dynamic for a bit, and now things are going back to a new normal! I really find this to be a very cozy and funny slice-of-life series, I will probably keep reading it until I catch up.
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Kagurabachi - Up to chapter 115. Speaking of which… I catched up to this one. What an epic journey it has been thus far. Definitely one of the best action manga series to read, I highly recommend it.
Started
- Clarkesworld Magazine #211 - I decided to continue using my Xteink X4 to read and catch up on this sci-fi/fantasy managzine. I subscribed to it a couple years back and have never completed a single issue, whoops. For now, I finished the first short story: The Lark Ascending
Gaming
Started
After the great experience I had on Resident Evil 2 I decided to give the OG Resident Evil a try. I’m happy to say, it’s not far behind at all! This game has been a joy to play and die on over and over. Yes. I am playing this game as it was intended to be played with no save states, which is something I didn’t do for the sequel.
I noticed how a lot of the dread and my decision-making was affected by just loading up a save state over and over again—I had pretty much did it after every single door I went through—and thought I’d have a try at the proper experience a survival horror is supposed to have. Honestly? I hate it, but I love it! This is giving me the same feeling that games like Silksong have.
Making so much progress, but being unable to save! Making choices, going for a run trying to not use ammo, it’s so fun. I live with the consequences of my own decisions, and I love it. The one thing I hate is the map, it’s not as good and doesn’t signal locked doors, I also can’t see my position in the room, which can be a bit more confusing. Just a nitpick, though.
On a similar vein, I decided to revisit Metroid Fusion once more, I’m playing it on my Miyoo Mini Flip and having a lot of fun. Like I did with Resident Evil, I am avoiding save states for this playthrough, and honestly? I am really liking it for similar reasons. I already went through two of the bosses, and stopped right as I got to the room with the third one. The pocketability of the handheld I went for this was key for me to be flying through this so fast!
The last surprise here is Pokémon Emerald Legacy, the romhack that perfects the third gen of the franchise! I played it for a bit on my Miyoo Mini Flip, but ended up putting it on my Anbernic instead because mGBA’s performace—which is used for the in-game clock—wasn’t cutting it. Maybe I could use gPSP, but the guide recommended the other, and my SP is better suited for that, in any case, RE took over for now.
Ongoing
I continued playing CrossCode, doing the third dungeon of the area I’m on. I managed to reach the first boss fight! The puzzles until now have been as challenging as ever, and combining the mechanics I unlocked has already fried my brain multiple times. I’ve actually needed more short breaks because it gets a little exhausting. Still very fun though.
Out of nowhere, I decided to return to the origina Ridge Racer for the PSP. I was playing the sequel—the same but more tracks—but I got stuck in some races against individual modified cars. I just wanted to play courses so I went back and decided to complete more of the ones in the original game. The soundtrack is as epic as ever.
Of course, I bought Balatro for my phone—the store even gave me a discount for some reason—and have played it for about an hour today already…
Around the Web
Blog posts
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Please Compensate The Work You Appreciate - This has been a struggle for me as well. I’ve been buying and supporting artists, developers, creators and the like much more during these past few years, but it’s still not the normal in my culture and country.
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Old School Questions - A fun questions challenge that I am inclined to participate in at some point this week.
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Initial thoughts on the tiny XTEINK X4 ereader - Oh look, more and more people buying this tiny ereader and writing about it. Epic stuff.
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Sobre afeitado - This post is in Spanish. I really enjoyed reading about Adrian’s journey with shaving, I’ve been using double-edged safety razors for years at this point, it’s really a joy, I should write a bit about it too.
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New house, new blog, new me - I like to see posts from people who show up after months on hiatus!
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Back on a static site?! - I like to see posts from people who show up after months on hiatus!
YouTube
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The Long Hiatus of a Game Franchise - A great video essay from Scott, the title is self-explanatory, there’s a lot of Mega Man talk which is always nice.
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Overrated Game Consoles - Another essay with a very self-explanatory title. I just love Scott’s humor and takes in general, what can I say?
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How We Ported Balatro to the GBA - This is some incredible work! I kind of want to give it a spin.
This is day 43 of #100DaysToOffload
