Things have been going okay, I think!

World Letter Writing Day

Is coming up on Wednesday, September 1st.  Y'all know how much I'm into handwritten letters, so I encourage anyone who is interested to participate by doing some writing, either to a friend, or for an activist cause such as voter outreach.

Rhythm Quest Stuff

Progress continues on my indie rhythm game, Rhythm Quest.  As always, feel free to follow along via the devlog posts.  Here's the latest gameplay video, featuring a new level and song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up6B_Dy3_To

I'm gearing up to try and run a closed alpha test soon, just with a handful of friends and such, to get some initial feedback, and maybe identify whatever issues of the game need work -- probably stuff like "this screen is confusing" or "this level is too hard", etc.  I've done a bunch of work over the past month on stuff like the UI and tutorial flows, so I think for this next week it's time to shift over and just make a bunch of content (e.g. levels and songs), which should be very fun!  (That and debug some performance issues on Android, yipee......)

Chicky Stuff

It has been a bit of a journey getting to this point, but my two silkie chickens (xiaohei + xiaobai, or black chicky + white chicky) are all settled in together and are living a happy life in their big bin in the corner of my office.  Their living space has gone through some gradual upgrades, and it has been nice carving out a nice home for them over time.

Blackie still bullies Whitie and some days they just decide to be very noisy, but overall they have been very well behaved.  It's been nice.

Other Life Stuff

I'm taking a short trip over labor day weekend! First time traveling in years, so it should be a (hopefully safe...) nice change of pace.  Nothing too fancy or anything, and as always I'll be looking forward to home cooking abroad, lol.

Speaking of which!  I have been watching more of Ms. Yeah's "office cooking" videos, haha.  Obviously not as relevant to me as before when I was actually doing office cooking, but still funny and...actually, a little inspiring sometimes honestly haha.

Space Alert Stuff

I've been continuing to do mission runs in Space Alert, my favorite board game.  Mostly solo, but I also had a session with a friend where we managed to actually do quite nicely, even finishing a 3-mission campaign with mixed white+yellow threats and ended with a ship in perfect condition (while slightly inebriated, to boot).  I've also managed some pretty nice achievements myself, including a yellow + red threats only mission, a perfect white + yellow + red mission, and a perfect yellow threats only double actions mission.

I did have a particularly nasty failed mission the other day though, just a really unfortunate combination of yellow threats on a double actions mission.  I had been chasing the perfect double actions yellow threats achievement, and it turns out I don't really think there was a realistic way to do that mission perfectly unfortunately.

Baldur's Gate Stuff

I've been continuing through my playthrough of Baldur's Gate 1, finally reaching the actual titular city of Baldur's Gate (in chapter 5 of the story).  My party is pretty much set now, I've got:

- The player character, as a gnome multi-classed fighter/mage.  Funnily enough she ends up allocating a number of spell slots to Identify (of all things) since the other mages in the party can't scribe Divination spells.  She generally just casts a buff or two and the walks into the fray wielding a Dagger of Venom.

- Kagain, the super tanky Dwarf fighter who comes with a whopping 20 constitution.  His base Dex is only 12 but I gave him the bracers of dexterity which push that up to 18, making him hard to hit and better at hitting himself.  I fit him with the cheetah boots which increase movement speed, which ensures that he's always at the front of the group as he sprints around.

- Yeslick, the Dwarf fighter/cleric.  I was initially running a different cleric, but decided I wanted another frontline fighter and Yeslick fit the bill.  He generally just walks up and tries to whack things, but is also responsible for healing duty as well as some AoE party buffs from time to time.

- Coran, an Elf fighter/thief who is the best archer in the game with an illegal 20 dex and 3-point mastery in longbows.  He has one job (shoot things dead) and he does it extremely well.  He also happens to be providing thieving support for the team at the moment, because...

- Imoen, the player character's childhood friend, who starts as a thief, but I have (as is popular), dual-classed her to a mage.  She's currently still on downtime for her thief abilities, so she's just a mage for now until she reaches next level, at which point she'll regain access to those.  Currently she's mostly responsible for casting AoE disables like Sleep, but will also fling around some direct damage spells as well.

- Edwin, the evil mage, who happens to be the best arcane spellcaster in the game.  He's got the widest magic arsenal in the party, and uses it to good effect.  Magic often dictates most combat encounters, so it's important to have a least one person fill this role well.

Since I'm still working my way through exploring the city, it's been a lot of just gathering quests and having Coran run around stealing everything he can from innocent people's houses.  You know, typical adventuring stuff...

That's about it for now, I think...