Rhythm Quest development has still been going along smoothy!  It =feels= like I slowed down a bit, probably just because the first week of working was all the backdrops which seemed really noticeable and was a low "effort-to-impact" ratio.  I had one or two days this week where I was busy with other stuff as well, but eh, still managed to get enough done to feel pretty good about it.  I think I caught another cold though...=(

I finally mastered how to make shui zhu yu...(spicy sichuan "water-boiled" fish).  It's been such a long time in coming, since this is a dish that I've tried many times before, with quite mixed results, but I feel like I really have it down now.  One new addition I have to the process is to strain the broth after adding chicken stock to the fried/mixed doubanjiang paste.  This isn't very traditional, as far as I can tell, but getting rid of all the chili bits and seeds from the doubanjiang makes the dish way easier to eat.

I'm using "facing heaven" chilis for this dish along with green sichuan peppercorns (both from mala market) and I'm finding that you can be quite liberal with both (depending on spice tolerance, of course).  It feels like it actually takes a bit for the mala flavor to infuse into the dish, especially for the fish (I'm using swai fillets), so it can probably help to give it some time to sit and/or just use a heavy hand for those flavors.  Well, that, or you can just use a ton more oil than I did.  I may also experiment with dumping the peppers into the oil as opposed to dumping the oil onto the peppers at the end, that may be nice.  The leftover broth can easily be used to make a second serving, which may even turn out better than the first...

I am slowly trying to get acquainted with various types of cheeses after having been gifted a charcuterie board and knives.  It's been so long since I've had many types of cheese (if ever) so I feel like there are so many that I have no idea what they really taste like.  I like gruyere and parmagiano-reggiano i know, and cheddar is...cheddar.  Brie is nice, and mt tam is even better (mm, triple cream cheese), but for example I got to try out some aged gouda recently.  Not bad but I think not really my favorite.  I think gouda looks really pretty though!

Have another trip coming up soon, as well as (unfortunately) a bunch of dental work (boo), but I guess things are pretty ok overall.  I haven't been knocking it out of the park in terms of keeping up with music, letter writing, all that other stuff, but I've been working at it from time to time, which is all that I can really ask for anyways.  Feels like ages since I've found the time to stream any ALttP though.  Chickies seem to be doing okay too, though I had to give whitechicky a bath because she got poo'd on =(  Feels like I'm continuously iterating on their living quarters...they've been living together for the time being (and doing fairly well at it too), but I'm going to be splitting them up since it's better that way for my trip...

I was worried about getting back into Rhythm Quest development, but I managed to hit the ground running with quite a lot of good progress on artwork this week, so I guess (unsurprisingly) there was no real cause for concern.  If anything I may have worked a bit =too= much...

Both quails ended up being boys...so they are going to be due for beheading at some point.  They are too noisy and useless to keep around, unfortunately.  On the plus side, it'll be a significant amount less stink with them out of the picture.  Hopefully dumbchicky doesn't mind that her two "children" (emphasis on the quotes) are going to be taken away.  Chicky.

I finished reading Typers (https://shanekentknolltrey.tripod.com/), or rather, what the fanfic author had finished.  I can't say it was amazing or anything, but it wasn't a bad read at all, though I've got precious little to compare it to -- this sort of writing I feel like is more up my brother's wheelhouse.  Shame that I'll never get to see a resolution to the whole thing, but at least my curiosity is satiated for now, and that's yet another loose thread from my memories tied up in classic Timm[ie] fashion.

Military concerns continue to be the bane of my campaigns in Emperor -- I've discovered that building some sort of standing army is an important early priority to get out of the way, otherwise the other cities feel too invited to start attacking.  The next mission is on a huge map where I'm supposed to found the capital of the Qin dynasty or something and I've got a strong feeling that I'll be forced to revisit the same city multiple times across the course of the campaign, so I should make sure that I set things up well.

I watched season 2 of The Promised Neverland anime back when I was still recovering from my cold and it was...eh.  I'd echo the general sentiment that it felt rushed and ill-equipped to portray what may have originally been a good plot from the manga (?).  However, there is a somewhat memorable scene where Emma learns to kill and clean an animal for food for the first time.  Having done that deed for many a quail in my time, I appreciated that they showed the significance of that and how it changed something in her, albeit small.

Things are going well, in general, but somehow my mood seems to have turned sour today.  Better luck next time I guess.  Tomorrow is Friday, at least, and there is the weekend to look forward to.

2021 in Review

I used to do quarterly retrospectives back when I was in school, so the last time I had one of those was....2012...

Let's go by topic matter, I guess.  I'll try to keep it a little succinct.

Rhythm Quest

Probably the biggest headline for me this past year was quitting employment to work on my indie game, Rhythm Quest.  Having put a solid 7 or so months of work into it now, it's....at a pretty good place.  I guess 7 months is a little misleading -- really there was quite a bulk of development done a few years back.

Full-time indie development has its own sort of rhythm and challenges to get used to, but given my record of following through on these sorts of things, I wasn't =too= worried about maintaining consistent progress.  It's easy for me to feel like I'm not working fast enough (to be fair, I slowed down quite a bit during the past two months), but looking back on it it's hard not to say that I've put in quite a lot of solid work.

My hope is for development to finish in 2022...it's just up to me to maintain a steady pace in order to make that happen. 

 

Cooking

This year saw me try to reduce my meat consumption -- previously I was having some sort of meat with every meal and that's gone down, though I usually still have some each day.  Red lentil curry and dry-fried green beans have been some notable additions to my repertoire this year, but I think the biggest exploration has been into vaguely roman-style pasta dishes.  I don't know if I actually made a single tomato sauce-based pasta dish this year...instead I leaned heavily into using parmagiano reggiano cheese and making cacio e pepe or carbonara.  Sometimes the classic roman pasta dishes are a little plain for me so I take to adding in mushrooms or some shrimp, but overall I feel like I really explored and enjoyed pasta a lot more this year.  I also enjoyed making basil pesto sauce with pasta, as well as butternut squash pasta.  I even cobbled together a nice pasta that utilized some leftover pork shoulder as well as pork juices in an emulsified sauce...

Ironically despite eating less meat, I somehow managed to gain something on the order of 10 pounds (!?) this year, which astounded me as I've been stuck at the same weight for quite a number of years.  Not sure exactly which factors led to it, but the extra weight is actually a healthy sign for me, so I'm not complaining.

"Dance"

Social dance continues to be vacant from my life and I continue to get exercise via a mix of DDR and freestyle dance practice.  DDR is the "easiest" form of exercise, so that's what I default to.  I played less DDR this year than last, but I leaned fully into becoming a doubles player, so I've been moving around more and enjoying more complex patterns.  I believe last year I managed a Max 300 clear somehow, but I haven't really tried to replicate that.  Perhaps that's a goal to work towards again?

Freestyle dance progress is....I'd like to say slow and steady, but really it's more slow and sporadic.  It's not high on my priorities, so I only get around to it every once in a while.  But it's something I'm interested in, so I do my best to work on my movement.  It takes a lot of work.  I was pretty bad about doing tai chi this year, but eh, you pick and choose your battles.

 

Chickies

This was probably the other headliner for me this year.  Funnily enough, the actual number of birds in my life stayed the same, but the 4 duckies are gone (now in a different home, doing okay there), and instead I've got two silkies and....more recently, two quails.  It's certainly been an experience integrating the chickies into my life, and coming up with a good setup and routine to care for them.  I approached it all with a bit of trepidation, but as with all things, now that I've put in the work, it's settled down into a comfortable routine and they are doing pretty well.

Games

Here's what I can remember playing this year....

- Mega Man 7 FC
- Mega Man: Rock and Roll
- Mega Man: Super Fighting Robot
- ALTTPR/SM/SMZ3 (1991/1994)
- Mega Man X2 (1994)
- Terranigma (1995)
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)
- Baldur's Gate (1998)
- Descent: Freespace - The Great War (1998)
- Descent: Freespace - Silent Threat (1998)
- DDR (1998)
- Pop'n Music (1998)
- Freespace 2 (1999)
- Pharaoh/Cleopatra (1999-2000)
- Diablo 2: Median XL (2000)
- Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (2002)
- Symphonic Rain (2004)
- 2064: Read Only Memories (2015)
- Stardew Valley (2016)
- Sky: Children of the Light (2019-2021)
- Coffee Talk (2020)
- The Last of Us Part II (2020)
- Rhythm Doctor (2021)
- Little Nightmares II (2021)
- Hades (2020)
- Chicory: A Colorful Tale (2021)
- EDDA Cafe (2021)
- Deltarune Chapter 2 (2021)
- Pokemon Unite (2021)

Hades was of course a highlight, but everyone kind of knows that already.  Stardew Valley continues to be a great netplay-and-voice-chat hangout game.  Symphony of the Night was solid, and Pokemon Unite really impressed me with how fun it made the moba experience.  TLOU2 really impressed me, and of course I've got a soft spot for the city-building games (Pharaoh, Emperor).  I'm loving Chicory so far, as well.  Read Only Memories is probably the best adventure game / visual novel I've played in recent memory.

Overall out of everything I played, Hades is an easy standout, but I'm looking forward to having more praise for Chicory as well.

Music

I only had 3 non-monthlies releases this year and only one of those was a full album (the School of Sorcery OST), but overall music has been going well.  The big cleanup I did of my VSTs and such really helped, and I managed to track down some great new sounds, which I've already put to good use.  I finished up the Super Mega Zero soundtrack commission this year as well, which I consider one of my better soundtracks to date.

Life Overall

The beginning of the year feels so long ago, it's hard to even remember how I was feeling throughout the year.  I remember some bad times -- nothing horrible, just bad -- but I think you're bound to have some of that every year.  From what I can remember, I honestly feel like the year went fairly well.  "As well as can be expected for another year in the covid pandemic", is the natural thought, but honestly it seems old hat by now, and I've already waxed about how we were already halfway isolated to begin with.

Finishing Rhythm Quest is the obvious goal and hope for 2022, but it's honestly just as important (a prerequisite, really) to ensure that I'm enjoying life as I do it.  I don't know if it's just the holidays, but I feel like I've been gaming more often these days, and honestly I'm all for it.  I feel like it's made me remember how to enjoy life a little more; that there's actually something you're supposed to look forward to at the end of the daily tunnel/grind.

Edit: I forgot to note that this past year also saw me take a big step in trying to reduce my material possessions by cleaning up my wall decorations and such.  That felt like it was a long time coming but I think still represents a sort of turning point in how I'm approaching some things in life.  I've written about it here as well, about feeling less like things are inherently meaningful.

Read Only Memories, Emperor, Chicory

Been playing through games at a quick pace recently, it seems.  Most of that is due to the holiday season, and the fact that I'm truly taking a break from work -- of almost all sorts.  Part of it is also due to the fact that I seem to have gotten ill more than usual...first with the booster shot side effects, then more recently with some sort of cold/other bug.  Bleh.  Well if there was any doubt left in my mind whether I should be trying to work on something or other, that's more or less gone now since I've no energy in my system to do anything like that.

2064: Read Only Memories

This is a game that I picked up and played through recently -- part of the itch.io racial justice bundle from a while ago (insane how much stuff is packed into that).  This is a game released back in 2015, though you might not guess it from the 2d pixeled graphics.  So, not actually that old, especially by the standards of games that I tend to play.  This is also set in a similar (same?) universe as VA-11 Hall-A, which came out a year later and had a handful of tie-ins/references.

Read Only Memories is an adventure game, I guess you could call it a point and click (?), but whatever, one look at the game and it'll become clear how it plays out.  I was a bit skeptical on how exactly it would be at first, since the very first moments of the game are pretty lacking in terms of any sort of excitement/etc.  But you delve into the actual thick of things soon enough, and then you start proceeding through the plot line, which consists more or less of unraveling a mystery of sorts.

I really enjoyed Read Only Memories, probably just because I thought the writing was great.  I felt like it did an excellent job of making a linear storyline =feel= less linear than it actually was, specifically and especially with regards to dialogue choices.  Read Only Memories has a few points where it seems to really try to let you know that you shouldn't expect the story and dialogue to just run on rails, as some other generic-adventure game would.  In the first segment of the story, the deuteragonist AI Turing serves as a sort of crutch for worldbuilding exposition -- you constantly get briefed by them on the sci-fi elements of the game as they come up.  But at one point when you ask Turing, they stop and express frustration, asking why you don't just look it up yourself / why you didn't already know that.  This moment subtly calls into question these sorts of genre conventions where NPCs are, ahem, "robotic" and subservient to whatever needs to happen in the dialogue to lead you to the next thing.

In the end there are a lot of choices in Read Only Memories that don't end up affecting the overall narrative, but there's enough mention given to your choices that you feel like they =could= or =could have=.  Even though rationally in the final chapter of the game I sort of already figured out that this is just a linear narrative without major branch divergence, the way that this is executed made me feel as though my decisions still bore weight, regardless of whether or not they actually did (in truth, some do, some don't).

Overall I really liked it.

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom

I mentioned that I had started this one, and I'm really enjoying it thus far!  The systems are similar to those of Caesar/Pharoah, but different enough to present new challenges.  Like with Zeus, there's a global labor pool, which is a huge difference and allows you to concentrate on creating nicer housing blocks without having to worry about providing labor access to industries.  The widescreen/increased resolution patch for Emperor works without a hitch, and overall the game works really well, though I guess it's not quite as good as the Caesar III Julius/Augustus port.

I've been playing on Very Hard, as it seems like that's actually a manageable -- yet difficult -- level of challenge for me.  My main struggles so far have been trying to establish a city quickly enough and set up profitable trade routes (which must be negotiated in this game, not just purchased) before I run into debt and lose all my money.  I'm starting to get a good handle on how I like to build my housing blocks already!

The cities in Emperor are definitely more aesthetically pleasing than those of the other games, and I think that's one of the draws of this particular game.  Being able to section off your housing blocks using residential walls is cool, and there are less requirements on how farms work as well (because of seasonal crops), so those are easier to just lay out wherever.  Trade is a little different, as there are dedicated trading stations as opposed to caravans/ships taking directly from warehouses.  Food distribution is a little different too, as generally the idea is to only have one granary (called a "mill" here) and really centralize your housing block resources.  This of course is possible because the positioning of housing blocks compared to industry is more lax because of the global worker pool.

There's also a "feng shui" system which can be annoying if you're a perfectionist, but also provides an interesting sort of challenge / planning if you're trying to account for buildings which for example need rocks nearby to be auspicious in feng shui.  So far I haven't really been focusing on it too much.

Anyways, I'm really enjoying it!  Probably my only complaint so far is that there are missions which make you revisit old cities which you have already built up and try to reach new goals with that existing city.  That can be disorienting especially if there are one or more other missions in between -- I'd probably rather just have a new map for every mission and start fresh, as part of the fun in these missions is really setting everything up well from scratch, rather than trying to cobble together an existing thing and repurposing it to be better.  In theory the city that you won the previous mission with was good and well-functioning, but potentially having to deal with your previous mistakes is worrying.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale

I started this one up just recently while down with my latest sickness.  This one was released less than a year ago, so definitely one of the more recent ones.  I had the chance to play a short demo of this a while back, and was intrigued, but the game has gotten way better as I've gotten into the later chapters (now at chapter...4 I think?).  Sure, the first chapter was kinda fun, but I feel like if things had just continued on at that same level / pace, it would have really gotten boring.  But the next few chapters introduce all sorts of really fun activities and toys and such for you to play around with.  I've been playing using my Wacom Tablet and that has been working amazingly well; feels like it's really the ideal way to play the game for sure.

Not only am I liking all of the fun drawing stuff that has been introduced, but I'm liking where the story is going (so far) as well.  I have pretty high hopes for this one, but I guess I shouldn't expect anything too grand -- that's a recipe for disappointment no matter how good the thing is.  But I'm certain that whatever Chicory has in store for me, I'm going to enjoy it.

Maybe I'll do a year in review post later, but for now, that'll do it.