Gaming, Donut and Shopping

Hello everyone,

I've been descending into those games again ... And also dreaming of munchies.

That one happened as a quick sketch over the weekend, triggered by posts from the lovely actress and donut fan Rekha Sharma. I've been enjoying seeing what she posts on the Twitter (Linky) and it's always something nice, lovely and making people smile. Another sketch happened too but that was for my Comic Con friend. She liked it, which makes it worth it.

There's been a couple of those, sketches that I only share with the people for whom they're intended. In a time where there is the internet and whatever goes on the internet stays there (even in the archive sites), it's worth being a little circumspect with what you post. And how you edit ...

I don't edit my posts much at all. It's actually pretty rare. Like if I spot a typo in a post that's months old, I won't fix that. The kinds of edits I do tend to be formatting, sometimes blogger pops in a heap of extra line spaces, especially around pictures. I'll chop those out because it helps the flow of the post if there aren't all that many white spaces in there. But I'll only very rarely change what's in a post. It's a reflection of how and what I'm thinking at the time, so if you change the writing then you change the memory. That said, that PC bits post of the other day saw a change happen ... I don't like giving advice that's wrong and I needed to add in a "Don't get that, get this !" in there ...

Talking of shopping ... I'm mostly ignoring what's going on in the world at the moment and essentially staying in my bunker as much as I can waiting for it to blow over. That's probably the best way for everyone at the moment, although hopefully we're coming to the end of that now. I'm quite looking forwards to getting out and about around the shops again, although it'll be odd being out there again.

I'll probably need to acquire a mask so I don't get lynched for sneezing a lot.

I've been thinking about breaking the steering away from ordering stuff online too ... Let's see :

Music - I'm always wanting more and after seeing the first two episodes of Devs, I want the album by Low which has the theme tune. It's a great theme tune : Congregation by Low (youtube link). And there's more too, like expanding the Mike Oldfield collection, Dirty Vegas, Lisa Miskovsky and a couple of others like Agnes Obel.
Lego - it's calling again ...
Graphics card - I'll come on to more about this later but I'm now definitely looking to upgrade, sadly though the options are limited to the 2060 cards costing £300. That's more than I want to spend. Newer cards haven't come out for ages and it's the new cards coming out that pushes down the prices.
Books - always room for more books in the book cave.

Game ! This one is the latest. It's The Outer Worlds and I started it off after completing Deus Ex Mankind Divided last week. It's another first person perspective role playing game and because it came out just last year ... is pretty demanding on the hardware. I have it on the medium settings at the moment, which pushes my graphics card pretty hard.

Sure does look pretty though and I've been getting to grips with the gameplay so far.

Parvati's a good egg too, probably very heavily inspired by Kaylee from Firefly though ...

Other things in the gaming pot lately have been Motorsport Manager, where I'll go for the No Sponsors achievement in the next season. The team should have more than enough funding to allow that.

There's also been a re-entrance of the Nomnivorian Swarm in Stellaris, first time I've properly been back in there for a little while. Stellaris is becoming a bit of a sad case. There have been two major version updates lately ... but the quality assurance isn't there in the game any more I think. Instead of releases being held until the game is as bug free as they can manage, new bugs are introduced and old bugs are not removed. I closed today's session slightly early because my fleets hit the pacifism bug again (they get engaged in combat and don't shoot back unless you save and reload). I saw another new bug with the fleet manager on the weekend, plus there's another new one with the planet display where it doesn't show all of the pops on the planet.

It's annoying ... and there are a bunch of other games to be looking at. Besides, Stellaris has been guilty of doing nasty things to my shoulder and neck (I lean forward and look up - bad habit). I had a little peek at the Elite Fleet Carriers again :

That's the Sleepy Tea Vault, which was over on the beta server for a bit. It'll be a long time before I get a carrier on the live server, if at all. The user interface for controlling them is a bit ropey and I'm not convinced they have a viable purpose in the game. I did enjoy getting back in for some trading on Sunday though and I'll try my hand at mining at some point relatively soon.

I had another look at Creeper World 3, Arc Eternal today as well. It's a tower defense game, which is summed up by you having to fend off a series of waves of enemies by building gun and other types of towers and arranging a maze to get the most out of your defenses. Instead of having bugs or other enemies, Creeper World 3 has a fluid like enemy that gradually spreads over the map. It's a nice variation and somewhat more hands off than other strategy games. I think I'll stick with this one more.

The Outer Worlds is very pretty though.

There's some lovely rich colours in there, plus it's nice to see the stuff on the distance that you can actually travel in to. (Deus Ex Mankind Divided had great backdrops that you couldn't visit).

Oh ! I'm off work this week. It was originally scheduled to be Comic Con and Lords IST20 week. Those aren't happening this year. I needed the time off anyway, I tend to burn out these days and need to watch the signs so that it doesn't creep up on me too much. I'm planning to have a fairly easy week, although I need to moderate the game playing somewhat in order to avoid having my hands flare up. Currently got soreness in my right hand, probably due to internet spaceships ...

Oh well.

They do look pretty though. Might have to look into jumping on a deal for a better flightstick too soon ... The drawing does somewhat affect my hands as well. Putting pressure on the pad can aggravate the soreness, I think I need to look into using the graphics tablet again.

Oh - after a while away from doing them, I think I'll be doing another music post soon. It nearly happened tonight but I have more sketchy ideas ... and I think these sketchy ideas would be perfect for a music post. It may involve dwagons and a band. Let's see how it does.

In the meantime, stay safe, be well !