Things are goin alright, I think...?

Work on Rhythm Quest continues -- last week I did a major rehaul of the menu system, and this week is going to be even more work on that, this time getting into options and settings.

Another goodbye at the end of the week.  I'm not sure yet how exactly I feel about this one.  I'll find out when I get there.  Perhaps I'll have some various things on my mind...

Arguably against my better judgment, I decided to start playing through Baldur's Gate 1.  I say "play" rather than "replay" because honestly I never played through all that much of BG1 to begin with.  For those not in the know, Baldur's Gate is a 1998 RPG game based on the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset and world mechanics.  You create a character, go through the main storyline (and bunches of optional content), all while meeting party companions, leveling up, finding equipment, fighting various villains and monsters, you get the deal.

I was somewhat prompted to go back to BG due to the latest Magic: the Gathering set being D&D focused (of course, I haven't actually played with that set at all, but still...), which reminded me back to BG.  I actually bought BG2 on steam a while ago thinking that it might make for a fun co-op game, but found that that wasn't really the case.  I also read some strong opinions by die-hards that the design in BG1 was stronger than in BG2, so I dug out the ol CD-rom discs and took a bit of effort to get them installed on my computer.

Unfortunately there's a bit of a weird divide on what the best way to actually enjoy BG these days is.  I'm going with the original since there have been some criticisms of the "Enhanced Edition".  I would have liked to play with some quality-of-life-improvements (higher resolution....) but unfortunately I don't even have the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion so those patches don't seem to apply.  Actually.....now that I think about it, BG1 is on sale for only $3 on GOG and comes with the original games, so I may as well just get that and see if I can install the expansion and then modernize the game just a tad bit.

Anyways that has been surprisingly fun so far!  BG is one of many games from an era which I encountered in my youth while lacking both the understanding to fully appreciate it, as well as the consistency to continue playing through it.  I've previously written about other games in this vein (Caesar 3...), and I'm finding great joy as always in revisiting these games from the past, now through a much different lens than I had back then.  Of course, not all of these games age very well, but a lot of them do.

Now that I have Space Alert basically permanently setup on a table in my office, I've been regularly doing solo runs here and there -- most recently doing some double-action white threat missions, to practice my double-action planning skills.  Space Alert is unfortunately a game where the setup and reset/teardown process really drags on compared to the (rather fast-paced) action, so anything at all to reduce the amount of effort required to reset the board and all is paramount to being able to enjoy the game, I've found.  I've gotten it to a pretty good system, though shuffling threat/action cards manually and such still takes more time than I'd like sometimes.  But it's been fun!

Anyways, I guess it's not a bad thing to have more things to look forward to.