The Narcissism of Small Differences: The Distractions in Games

Categories Board Games, Video Games

Twelve years ago I watched Adam Sessler talk about the necessity of throwing away all of his physical game cases. He had a phrase that stuck with me ever since, the “fetishization of minutia.” Sessler spoke of how games emphasizing special editions and unique DLC take away from the cultural conversations around games. Ultimately, he expressed that he felt everyone was being manipulated and missing the experience of just playing our games and not focusing on hypersensitivities.

I’m no saint speaking from a podium of purity. A couple of years ago, I was begrudgingly all in on the predatory Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online. I was played and felt awful for having participated in a part of what is an otherwise lovely game. I am not unsympathetic to appreciating the desire or hyper focus on wanting something. I have a shelf of unopened board games that knows this too well.

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I Waited to Play Sons of the Forest

Categories Video Games

Authors Note on January 16th, 2025: It appears there is life. The game has gotten a sizable number of fixes applied to it and raft structures have made an appearance. I’m going to leave the rest of the post as is for posterity. I will add that I have softened on the game after this. I do think communicating more updates were coming would have helped.

Original Post:

The original game, The Forest, gave me a ton of positive memories. Steam says I played it just shy of 60 hours, and I can say that I thought it felt like more because I was sucked in for a while. The game exuded horror and the survival elements felt like an ingrained challenge. Last year Realeo got me a copy of Sons of the Forest as a gift, but I wanted to wait until early access was over. Well it is over, sort of.

Sons of the Forest does not feel like the game I was hoping for next. I’m only about 15 hours in so far, but it is extremely apparent that the game is incomplete. With the last small hotfix coming 200 days ago, I do not think the game is going to see any more attention and that is a shame. The bones are still the same game, to a fault. However, balance and lack of growth hold Sons of the Forest back.

From the opening, you are treated to another flight-start but without the emotional investment delivered. Much like the first game, you collect resources and build a base of sorts, but this time you have an AI companion. Kelvin is this adorable fellow who you communicate to via written exchanges that are often ignored. You see, Kelvin has a singular brain cell. I won’t say too much more, but Kelvin is not the only friend you can meet but there are no more brain cells and so it is shared amongst them.

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The Minor Keys: Christmas for One

Categories Holidays, Music

I’m the holiday-type. It feels weird to need to say that, but I have met people who really do not welcome date-specific times of celebration. I enjoy an excuse to be merry and put up bright lights, but this year I am a bit at odds with Christmas. I find myself alone and living in an in-between town, squared center from where I was to where I am going, and that is not conducive to cheer. I’m doing my best though, I made a couple of people happy and that always warms me for a bit, but sometimes I just want to read a book or listen to music with people like me.

This post may come off a little bit Microwave Cooking for One, but there is a season for everything and everyone.

The Right Music

Joni Mitchell’s song, River, opens with a minor key contrast of Jingle Bells. Wouldn’t it be nice to get away from the loneliness of the season and skate down a river?

The Right Socks

Keeping warm during the holidays extends well beyond what you feel in your heart. Ground yourself with some special socks, even a single pair. Sometimes when we feel down, we forget

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Firefox CSS: Centered Bookmark Bar with Hidden Text

Categories Tech

I enjoy having my bookmark bar always showing, but the default styling is a bit much. This area is reserved for my most visited websites, a way to quickly jump from one to the other, and so seeing full names constantly is not necessary. Visually, I just think things should be centered and so there is that.

What This Changes

  • Hide the bookmark text but show it if you hover over an icon.
  • Adjust the padding around the icons so they aren’t so cramped together.
  • Increase the icons sizes to 18px each. Anything more and it starts to look a bit blurry.
  • Center the bookmarks and add a 2px padding below and above so they aren’t touching the edges of the bar.
  • Style the separators on the toolbar using an RGBA color that goes well with the Nordic Dark theme. You can adjust this color to anything else you want at any RGBA color picking website. Just replace rgba(77, 85, 101, 1) with whatever color you want.
Some icons are missing for privacy, but this is what it will look like. When you hover over an icon the name will then be shown for the icon.

The How

Changing the CSS in Firefox can seem complicated if you land at the official documentation pages, but it is a lot easier than that. A fair robust how-to page is housed on reddit and so I will not try to reinvent that wheel. Follow the link and when you get to the part about adding code, you can use what I have below.

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Live Service Games Keep Shutting Down, Why Won’t They Learn?

Categories Video Games

A lot of live service games have closed lately, games meant to be developed perpetually in a bid to find a golden cash cow. Less games have succeeded at this than have though, and it takes us to where we are today.

You can cite Concord, XDefiant or SEGA killing HYENAS, their most expensive game to date, before even launching it. The failure of these games to grab hold in the intended way is indisputable. What is missing from consideration is where games are today.

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10 Reasons to Play Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery

Categories Board Games

I cannot begin to describe how much I enjoy Spartacus. It is the opposite of the kind of joined hands I normally love; if there is an opposite to cooperation, then this is it. Lie and scheme your way to victory, or to nearly ending your relationship.

That all being said, it is a hard game to come by if you are a completionist. You will either have to work hard to find the original edition and its expansions, or try for the newer 2020 version that is identical except in its artwork and having not had the expansions released yet. Without further delay, lets discuss…

Reason #1: Wagers

Place your bets!

You can bet on fights, even if you are not involved. You can even take the risky bet that someone is decapitated for a 2 to 1 return!

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Realized Thoughts on Falling Out of Love with Blizzard

Categories Video Games

I spent countless hours playing Diablo 2 and its expansion, and it probably only barely edges out Starcraft for hours played. My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter. Both gave me a lot of good memories, but Westwood died after NoX and Blizzard also had Starcraft. I was passionate about Blizzard from this point. When World of Warcraft came out, I jumped from Star Wars Galaxies to WoW and never looked back. I was smitten once again. WoW felt like it took the ideas of what I wanted from role playing games and made everything bigger and more realized.

NoX
NoX by Westwood. “My introduction to role playing games was the first Diablo (On the Playstation!) and NoX (a Westwood game) and Diablo 2 thereafter.”

However, on reflection and while listening to Kyle Bosman and Jason Schreier talk about Blizzard and WoW, I realize the world of Azeroth was probably what ruined them for me. Despite years of love, and subsequent love-hate, I think the path Blizzard walked for World of Warcraft changed the company from one that made games regularly to one that only focuses on, and before the phrase really existed, live service games. I remember when Starcraft Ghost was canceled and then I just stopped hearing about Blizzard working on new games. I did jump into and play Overwatch thoroughly but even that eventually had its doors closed and got replaced with Overwatch 2, with extra emphasis on forever-money.

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The Morals of an Alley Cat

Categories Video Games

If you’re Millennial or Gen-Z, or a parent to someone who is, you may know of an aardvark with glasses named Arthur (and I only know how to spell aardvark because it was a part of the spelling bee in one of the episodes). The show addressed issues of sibling rivalry, night terrors, classism, feelings of regret, and a whole host of other things that people face every day. My friend and I discussed it a few years ago and we wondered if it would have been the same if the characters were human children instead of aardvarks, bulldogs, bunnies, and rats. We agreed the show wouldn’t be the same if the children were people.

Consider Stardew Valley vs Animal Crossing. Do the animals add to the charm of Animal Crossing? They seem to have very different audiences and the question remains: is it the species of the characters that makes a difference?

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