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girl gamer diary
It's really a fairly gender-neutral gamer diary. Or, make your own mind up, I guess.
2023
January
Not much gaming this month until the 29th when I started playing Dwarf Fortress! For a very long time I'd always wanted to get into it but it was sooo ugly so I always rather played something else (Pharaoh, Creatures 2, The Sims, more recently Kenshi...). But the Steam version is pretty cute (actually the dwarves are ugly) and I appreciate not needing to memorise a whole keyboard layout of interface. It's so much fun! In fact...
February
... today, the 5th, I realised I have been neglecting my website (and my writing!!) in favour of playing all those years' worth of Dwarf Fortress kinda condensed into a week. I'm mostly playing the same embark I keep restarting because I decide on a better layout (and I hate how the constructed walls look) or I learn how to clean water or whatever. I've played this one about 15 times now, 5 times from the same save with the same dwarves+wagon, hopefully this time it sticks :)
I learnt about giving my poor dwarves free time. The past two times, the two miners got married pretty soon. This time I was prepared for it and... it didn't happen! They both took up with one of the farmers. One of those was my first lesbian relationship in the game!! I had a gay couple move in a few tries ago... I see a lot of familiar migrant faces but they're yet to show up again ;_; I made them the tavern keeper and main performer :) The straight couple got married but the lesbian couple broke up. And got back together! But broke up again. And the miner took up with the doctor and I was worried about the farmer-cook all by herself... but she married the administrator just now! So of my starting seven, just the carpenter/supposed leader is single... I hope he can meet someone!
That's what inspired me to write this up!!!! And now I am back to the game!!
That fortress kept getting this massive migrant population explosion that made everything weird (literally I went from 19 to 55 the 2nd time...) and also it blew up my water system, I guess the hatch wasn't ice proof?? And so I ended up giving up on that one. I wanted to start a smaller fortress, maybe even trying to stick to the 7 and their kids, or just a few migrants (and maybe any visitors I convince to move in). I want to be able to keep track of them and their stories better! Yesterday, on the 6th, I started a new fort in a new world. A few false starts digging a nice road under a mountain, 'cause I hate channeling. But I got something good and we were away. Except... the dwarves refused to socialise when they were idle! I guess they hated each other! That's no good! I was willing to persevere with them being 6 women and a man too even haha! Today on the 7th I'm starting again! I think I will pick somewhere with a river... I am tired of managing ponds!
14th: I have done nothing but play Dwarf Fortress for three weeks. Or, just about. It's come to a temporary end not from boredom but crashes, unfortunately. I finally made a fortress I was gonna stick with but it's not behaving well, and I don't want to move to monthly autosave/saving after planning constructions/whatever. I was mad enough when my first babies here, a boy and a girl, were lost to a crash and became two boys (with worse personalities!), but I was gonna press on when I thought the crash was just from having the game open for like... a whole day lmao. But it's still misbehaving today and I'm fed up :(
I never stuck with a fortress before these recent pair of updates, so maybe it's something that broke on those and is going to be fixed? I live in hope, and so do the residents of Catfortunes (on their VOLCANO GLACIER!!! with a CAVE!! it goes down to the caverns, though I haven't been... a giant lived at the top for ~3 years, had killed 4 people prior to embark, killed like 65 cavern things (and seabirds!!! ;_;) before finally being defeated. The cave is called Trashhell lmao. Trashhell the Shitty Cave or something like that. It's great)
A few days ago for some reason I remembered Rebel Galaxy and its cool soundtrack, which I've been adding to my music library (this list really helped!) and then today GOG sent me an email that the prequel? sequel? which I'd apparently added to my wishlist in a trance was on offer for like 3 quid so I just bought it :) The reviews are mixed but I enjoyed the original a lot (which led into my brief time as an Elite Dangerous player, but I never liked the multiplayerness I think...) and anyway, I'm sure I'll like the soundtrack! It's downloading, idk if I'll start it today though. I have valentines plans and I also want to get some writing in!!
20th: I did go back to playing that same fortress but even with some ways to make it more stable it still randomly crashes. Super annoying. Today I still haven't got around to starting Rebel Galaxy Outlaw but I bought two new games, Star Valor and Greedfall.
Star Valor is... confusing? The UI is confusing. The game is super simple, more simple than Rebel Galaxy even... idk what to make of it. I played for half an hour, I have some time to get a refund I guess. (high quality review, I know)
I have super high hopes for Greedfall that I seriously need to temper. It's a new DAO!!!! Yeah yeah I bought the "it's like if Bioware made good games any more!!!" with PoE and look where that got me. (PoE is FINE I guess, and there's another game I need to finish...)
In more hot gaming news I'm not buying the new Pharaoh 'cause it won't run on my OS. I don't think I degraded myself by wishlisting a game I couldn't play, I think they must have dropped W7 support because they are cowards in M$'s pocket OR maybe they just never announced specs back then more likely! It has very mixed reviews so idk how I feel anyway. I mean, global labour pool omg... and the redone soundtrack sounds great from the snippets I heard. But apparently it's pretty buggy and there's some weird maybe-bugs stuff like police don't fight hippos any more and like wtf have they been doing? It's not like they had much designing work! But on the other hand: Pharaoh!!!!!!
March
2nd: Before the Steam xmas sale (or during??) I'd added Desperados 3 to my wishlist. And I'd ummed and ahhed on half price £12.50 and decided I wasn't sure it was my kind of game. Now the fucking price has gone up when I noticed it's on sale for half price £16.something... but whatever, inflation, it sucks but I guess games aren't immune.
I also suddenly noticed it had a demo, so I installed that the other day and finally got around to playing it today. It's FUN!!! So I bought not just it but the whole series bundle. It's my birthday soon so it was an early present hehe :)
I can't believe it's been a week and a half and I still haven't gotten to Greedfall or made my mind up any further about Star Valor. Idk what I've been doing 'cause it ain't been gaming or writing lmao and it hasn't been anything else either. Mystery!! (Actually, I kinda think it was website stuff...)
6th: it's my bday!! And I'm still playing Desperados 3 :D I finally have all the characters. The levels take me like 1h-1h30 on normal difficulty lmao, I have no idea how anyone gets the speed targets. I'm having fun though :D
8th: I did refund Star Valor in the end (on the 3rd!) and I used the money to buy Pathfinder: Kingmaker and its DLCs. I've heard good things about the sequel but it's more than I'm willing to gamble, so I'll try this one first.
Apparently it's "too hard", so I'm curious about how I'll find it. I never really know what people mean by "hard" ("easy"/"casual" on the other hand is simpler - a game you can play without concentrating). The difference between an unpaid job and a fun challenge is going to be a little down to the devs but mostly a matter of taste, so it would be more helpful if people said something like "it's hard because there's too much inventory management" or "because ranged combat is weak and I only like ranged combat" or whatever it is. But, sometimes these things are hard to put a finger on!
I hope it doesn't involve memorising damage types, because the only time I have ever tolerated that was Pokemon.
Idk if I'll start it today. I feel like I should play something that isn't Desperados 3 because I was literally seeing it in the ceiling as I fell asleep last night lmao.
9th: I did go back to Desperados 3. I finished it! The end really got on my tits. It's 6 missions per chapter apart from in the last one?? So I used my fave abilities like Isabelle's mind control before the finale... It was such a pain to complete, but whatever, I did it. It's a bit of a bland ending though. They don't even ride off into the sunset or anything. I guess it's the title screen but... meh.
I will play the DLCs and maybe replay some missions but not before I play something else!
11th: Yesterday I decided to start Icewind Dale, idk why. I haven't played it since I was a little girl and I never finished it. Actually I never properly played it 'cause I sucked at it. I remember how I just wanted to kill the tavernkeeper and it was all I tried to do but... that must have been a different game 'cause it's a woman not a man like I remember, and the inn is laid out differently. I'm so confused!
Anyway, I didn't get very far 'cause my party is weak so I'm gonna start again with hopefully better characters!
I initially couldn't get it to run at all - this is the original non-EE version I downloaded from GOG in 2014 - but I found it runs if you delete ddraw.dll. That dll also caused me horrible treacle-like movement in FO1, but deleting it fucked up the cutscene video colour which I hated but had to live with. But no more! Maybe! Haven't checked FO1 yet but I found this replacement for ddraw.dll and it seems really cool!
My new party is a lot more powerful but this game is so ugly and boring so far. I'm hoping it picks up now I've finally left the village but idk, I want to play something else! But idk what.
I decided to... install Catz 3 lmao. The official downloads didn't want to install but I found someone extracted them which is sooo much easier anyway. Please tell me if that ever goes down and I'll put them up on here :) It also didn't want to run right without PetzA. BUT! It still crashed after like an hour with that... idk if I just have to close it down more often or what. My catz are fine, but all my lovely decoration got reset ;_;
I forgot/never knew that if you cancel adoption partway you lose the cat forever!! So sad. I decided I wanted a tabby + persian and to get back to, jesus christ, 9 year old vegetablearian's life goal of breeding the kitten off the cover. I was slightly thwarted by rolling a grey persian... but she was so sweet and they got on so well... AND THEN I LOST HER because I was calling her Smoke but then I was like omg no Smokey would be better. ;_; But, I got a white one called Marshmellow instead. She constantly picks fights with Bournville (and licks him??) They are so much more lively than I remembered! Maybe I haven't played since I got my real cats, 10 years ago this year, and now I see so many more lifelike actions they do. :)
Now I'm gonna play something else, ideally start something like Greedfall or Pathfinder or the Age of Decadence demo I downloaded... but... something tells me I'm going to play Dwarf Fortress even though it's so crashy!!! I was looking at Rimworld earlier after seeing Frostpunk was on sale and a review saying it was just a shit Rimworld and I have Rimworld on my wishlist but it's not on offer rn but I already have DF so.....
12th: I went back to Just Cause 2 and finally finished the mission I was stuck on last night. (This game has such an annoying heavy feeling... I feel glued to the floor... the cars all have several bodies in the boots too?) But then today, I met a bug and I'm just done with this game. I uninstalled it and asked for a refund. I don't think I'll get one, but it makes me feel better to ask lmao. But, after submitting the request, apparently I only paid 99p for it lmao? I don't remember it like that but it's probably right, it was all in a big bundle. Now, will I actually get along with Just Cause 3? I hope so, but I'm not installing it today. 1. mad at it 2. it's like 55gb and I have too many games installed! I need to play some!
Last night I downloaded the demo of Star Drift Evolution and gave it a... spin... It's fun, I suck at it though. Neither of the camera angles work for me in all situations, but it has custom camera angles so I guess I can try those! I don't mind sucking at games, but I do kinda mind how EVERY time I lose this first race it's like "you know there's an easy mode babe?" like YES but I want to get good!
It's RPG time today!!! Greedfall or Pathfinder: Kingmaker... or....... I have had Deus Ex: Human Revolution installed for ages, that's an RPG right? OR I can try to get further in PoE or IWD... or I can do some FO4 DLCs... or I can restart FO1 again... I will not start my new FO3 playthrough today though, no no no, I want to play games not set up mods.
God, I've gone and jinxed myself, haven't I? :) But I really want to plaaaay something! Something fun, something that grabs me.
Well, I started Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And decided I couldn't be doing with it. It's only 12 years old but it's uglier than Thief 1 & 2. Why is it so yellow? And the gameplay is clunky compared to Thief, too. Fucking console games! I have to stop buying them... I'm not surprised but I couldn't get a refund for Just Cause 2. Square Enix need to stop making shit pc ports and also I need to play games more promptly so I don't have to pay for them when they suck lmao. Apparently I bought DE:HR nearly 10 years ago! For a whopping £2.24...
I'm gonna try and get a little further in IWD and then idk what! Maybe it will grab me by that point or maybe I have to try something else again...