crantz | Dear Diary: Why are crackers so sharp?

My Animal Crossing game is going well. I think I bought art from a Kitsune con-man. You know, it's kind of weird that in Japan there's kappas, tanuki, and kitsune, but in the western world they become frogs, raccoons, and foxes.

Let there be a little magic in our life from the little animals that want our money! That's all I'm asking!

Summer is coming and I'm debating doing a short fic exchange for doing fandom-based ghost stories (no original fiction) and that might be fun. I'm seeing if I'm still feeling it after I've slept.

World of Warcraft is getting a lot of new character options in the next expansion and I need to stop reading the replies because it's been a few hours now and I'm still thinking of the multiple replies to the Wowhead post demanding a pretty face for the human male be removed immediately. I'm not sure exactly what they think will happen if they see a pretty human male. Become ultra-gay I guess. Or start playing blood elves.

Oh yeah, blood elves will be able to have dark skin soon. Speaking of why I need to stop reading the comments. And Forsaken will have bright pink hair. And gnomes can look like Kitty Forman. Honestly my only complaint so far about the new expansion is that I'm already pretty low on character slots.

I downloaded 5 games from my massive steam library where games go to die unplayed. Will I play them? I don't know. Maybe. I want to. I truly want to.

The games are:

Grim Fandango
Graveyard Keeper (I'm gonna find out how financially viable it IS to sell your graveyard denizens for hamburger meat)
nightmares from the deep: the cursed heart (hidden object game, I do like those)
Detective Di: the silk rose murders
Indiana Jones and the fate of atlantis (fun fact: I have tried to beat this game three times and every computer it was installed on died. I'm not saying it's the game's fault but I'm renewing my warranty)

Will I play any of these? Who knows! Who knows indeed.

I haven't read a book in ages.

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From:

tainry

Ooooo hidden object! I tried one on my phone but ....it's too small a screen. Desktop all the way, baby.
Graveyard keeper sounds interesting too... I can pretend we've skipped summer and gone right to autumn...

I still haven't played Garden Paws or A Short Hike, so my Steam library is almost as unplayed as yours...aside from all the Myst games, Obduction, Talisman and Business Tour. And Night in the Woods. XD

crantz

I've tried Myst and I had trouble figuring out what I was supposed to be doing but everything I *hear* about it is amazing - can you give me some advice on how it's meant to be played?

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 CAN I!!!

So. Everyone's brain works differently; I did find most of the Myst games difficult in places and have the guide books for them! I think these days there are let's plays and walkthroughs online so you won't need the dead tree versions.

- I love these games for the worlds and the story, not necessarily proving how good I am at solving the puzzles.
- I found Riven, the second in the series, the most intuitive - the 'puzzles' were integral to the environment and made some kind of sense. I got exactly one soft hint from a friend who was also playing at the same time, about the location of one door I hadn't been able to find... XD All other games, including the original, I used the books to a greater or lesser degree.
- (Riven's navigation is a bit vexing, though, to someone used to WoW's free-range sort of movement. The first two or three games are pretty old, so slideshow navigation was the only way to make them work without hanging up the computers of the time. Masterpiece Myst I think has been retooled to be more free-movement...)
- The Cyan-published books usually had two or three levels of hints, so you could choose if you just wanted a nudge, or something more explicit, or a full-blown list of steps.
- Some of the puzzles are frustrating and kind of have to just be bruted through. There's a maze where you have to listen for sound cues, but there are no shortcuts the first time you go there so you just have to do the whole ride.
- It is absolutely of benefit to take notes. Even if you're using a walkthrough, codes in certain places are random/instanced, so each playthrough will be different. It is also fun to take notes. ;D If you like, I can take pics of my Uru notebook and post on discord.... ;D

What you are supposed to do is explore, and think about what you find. Anything you can interact with tends to be useful/important. The places are meant to be immersive and have their own logic. Physics works but sometimes in weird ways. Technology as magic.
Most of the games...in fact all of them I think?...you can go through the worlds of in any order you want, it's not linear until you get close to the end, and there are different endings, usually two - one good, one bad.

I have all the novels, too. In hardback. There is Lore. It's about books and writing and stories and families and fallen civilizations.
It is not perfect, but it is fun.