More or less.

I’m in a good mood because I just scored a big victory in Pathfinder : Wrath of the Righteous, that game I have been playing obsessively for weeks.

I won’t bore you with the details, but I beat a major baddie who was a smug and abusive asshole who REALLY had it coming.

And it was in gladiatorial combat. So there was even a wildly cheering crowd in order to further stoke my ego.

And this was no easy victory. This guy totally kicked my ass of me and my party a half dozen times before I thought of a better approach.

Namely making sure we were all fully rested before even starting the fight. I had forgotten that was an option in that scenario.

When I came back with everyone at full health and with their spells and abilities fu;lly recharged, motherfucker never stood a chance.

For one thing, I had remember that I have two different characters who can summon angels to help in the fight. That helped a lot.

As did the fact that my pet – a saber toothed tiger I named Snagglepuss – can really fuck a person up with his claw and bite attacks when he gets up close.

And he really earned his Meow Mix that fight. Did half the damage all by himself.

So anyhow, that rocked, and so I feel good.

Bought another game recently, a very furry interactive story called Beacon Pines.

I bought it because it is consistently the highest rated game on my Steam wishlist and I asked my friend Maelkoth about it and he gave it a solid recommendation, so I figured those were factors combined were enough to justify giving it a shot.

Well, that and the fact that it’s furry and adorable.

At first you might this is a harmless children’s story in a somewhat British mode, where all the people in a town are anthropomorphic animals in clothes and things and more or less act like people.

But Wind in the Willows this ain’t.

The game works by giving you “charms”, which are words you can use to select an option during one of the game’s branching storyline choice points.

And your first indication that this is not quite kid lit is that one of the first words you get in the game is “shit”.

Well I suppose in a world where the poop emolji is everywhere, that’s not so scandalous a thing any more.

You know, I remember a time when I could go weeks without seeing feces at ALL.

Anyhow, the game is quite good. It has a weird and creepy and HIGHLY original plot in which I am fully invested. I haven’t the slightest idea what happens next.

But the main characters are all child animals, and it is basically a Chose Your Own Adventure, so along a lot of the timelines, the kids die.

Fully of screen, of course, but still.

And the art and animaltion are top notch, as is the voice acting. And going back and trying a different word at a branching point is a lot of fun, but usually there are only two choices no matter how many words you’ve collected.

And I was disappointed in that but I understand. It would be hell on wheels to make a game where a dozen keywords plus a dozen branching points means 144 plotlines.

That would just be gross.

Anyhow, the game is quite good, but I am not sure I am going to keep it.

Because it’s just so slow and dull compared to the games I usually play.

There’s a reason I don’t explore all the “interactive fiction” out there, even though on paper (or electrons) they are exactly my sort of thing.

And it’s because video games have turned me into a stimulation junkie and just following some story with the occasional choice to make is too low stim for me.

Makes me feel like an utter cretin to admit it, but it is what it is.

I have played for roughly 90 minutes, meaning I have roughly 30 minutes of game time before I hit the two hour mark where past that point, I can’t return the game.

And I am tempted to return it. But I am sick and tired of my own flakiness when it comes to buying then returning games.

Especially because I know that it’s a lot more about my fear of getting “stuck” than it is about the games themselves.

And is it really that big a deal to get “stuck” with a game I don’t totally enjoy?

Given my highly limited resources…. yeah, actually.

So I really dunno.

Soon we will see if the game survives my rampant neuroses.

More after the break.

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Fox (on) fire

Holy crap, I wrote 800 words in part 1!

And they went by so fast and so easily that it didn’t seem like I had written more than usual. It seemed perfectly normal.

In fact I was quite pleasantly surprised when I slowed down enough to check my wordcount and found I was alright at almost 700 words.

I guess I had a lot more to say about Beacon Pines and my tendency to return games out of sheer nervousness than I thought I did.

The problem is that it makes it impossible to judge whether I actually like the game or not. When I look back at all the games I have returned, some of which are universally beloved by critics and players alike, my purported reasons for returning them seem superficial, slight, or downright nonsensical.

That’s how I know that those aren’t the real reasons I returned the games.

The real reason is that the two hour deadline was coming up and I became filled with apprehension to the point of it edging into panic and the quickest and easiest way out of that situation is just to return the fucking thing.

This does not bode well for future relationships.

Because the thing is, I am a nervous and excitable dude. Without depression artifically flattening and deadening things, I am the sort of person who gets very excited about things and that state of excitation can turn into either joy or panic (or rage) at any moment, depending on my mood.

And my mood is not naturally stable.

In my natural state, I am all over the place.

And I am learning to simply accept that. I am not the cold, calm, rational, and mature person I once thought I was.

I am, instead, warm, excitable, irrational, and childlike in many, many ways.

And you know what? I like me that way.

So goodbye, false versions of me.

From now on, I will just be who I am, and stop trying to curate myself.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.