august 2, 2024

beat Pseudoregalia! i probably should have been paying more attention to NPC dialogue, but considering how minimal (or at least, not in front of your face) the story of this game is, it makes sense for the ending to be more on the simpler side. its about the journey, not the destination! still have a few rooms and time challenges to beat, so will still be busy with this title for at least another day. one game in my list of "games to finish before summer is done" has been checked off! the list is only four titles, with them being Pseudoregalia, MirrorMoon EP, Yume Nikki, and Ikachan. MirrorMoon EP came onto my radar when i saw a Backloggd list of someone assigning games to albums, and i noticed that this title was assigned Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. now, it has been so long since i was in love with this album, i was obsessed with it as a freshman in high school, however i still retain enough from this album to know that some random person pairing it with a game means that i should at least try the game! plus it helps i have had a steam key of this game for years just sitting in my Humble Bundle account. Yume Nikki feels like a game i am now old enough to get. i never really liked the idea of walking simulators historically, although now with my age and the unlimited amount of time i find at my disposal nowadays, a mysterious walking simulator is exactly what i need right now. i am not sure where but i also read from some comment that you should play the game when you hit your 20s, or something like that, which is especially intriguing given i am that age now. will it connect to my experiences of being a young adult? we will see! Ikachan seems like the logical next step to play considering i have done at least one playthrough of both Cave Story and Kero Blaster this year. Eat Girl is an unofficial entry on the list. it is not an official entry as i have already played it before, just many years ago to the point where i dont remember a lot of it. i certainly remember that i really enjoyed it as a weird surreal Pac-Man adjacent title, so i look forward to replaying it. plus there is a secret that i know exists but never managed to find it, the developer alluded to it multiple times on their Discord server, which i was part of during the time of my initial playthrough.

Tatum helped walk me through makeup stuff today. it certainly is overwhelming but i at least managed to put some eyeshadow on! didnt dabble with foundation or concealer as nothing my family currently has matches my tone, but that is alright. for feminizing my head, i think the eyes and hair are the important things. when my family gets back from Oregon, i think im just gonna ask my sister to cut my hair and give me some bangs and see how i like them. i need to be bold! speaking of other overwhelming things, i got my sketchbook today and did a bunch of doodles. trying to find some art tutorials or introductions is scarily overwhelming, theres like a billion tutorials everywhere and also half of them are trying to sell you something (which isnt an inherently bad thing, i am just not ready to spend more money on this.) the only guide i watched was one for hands, eyes and hands are what i want to really hone in on and improve. the end goal for this is just to be able to make cute fan art of characters i enjoy. this is something i have always wanted to do, and i recognize that this, the time before a very lowkey semester (only 3 classes!) is a very, very good time to start doing this stuff. i am only getting older and i need to actually sit down and improve at these things before its too late.

played a few Roblox games with Rose and Tatum. Tatum and I played one of those Minion obbys made for 12 year olds, while Rose and I played Survive the 87 Disasters and Ro-Pictionary on Rowind, a game which specializes in recreating early Roblox experiences, a very commendable effort in the modern year of 2024. Roblox preservation is something that i am always concerned about. there are hundreds of thousands of unique games made, with some even being sponsored by million dollar corporations, and i have no idea if someone out there is actually making sure they are preserved. obviously Netflix Nextworld is not exactly high art, it is quite literally just advertising to children, but in the entire context of Roblox as a game and platform, it is incredibly relevant that one of the largest companies ever made a Roblox place, alongside every other corporation. also ill just go ahead and say it, theres fun to be had on Roblox! i have been an on and off user of Roblox over the years ever for half my life so far, and it is just as capable of having fun and creative ideas than any other game creation tool. todays Roblox developers are tomorrows game designers! even today they already are, Lethal Company's developer got his start through developing Roblox titles. anyways, back to that shitty Minion obby. it was pretty much what you would expect from a modern day obby developed around a promiment childrens character. in-game transactions galore, and very easy and simple level design. why did we play it? we were bored and the title "🏰MINIONS BARRY PRISON RUN! (OBBY)🏢" seemed funny. a part of me wondered if this was somehow sponsored by Illumination, considering just how prominent the minions were and it was seemingly themed very closely around Despicable Me 4, a new release that you would obviously want to market, but this theory fell apart when we reached the ending and noticed that the next "chapter" of this obby was themed around The Amazing Digital Circus, which i am not even gonna care enough about it to link it. i havent watched it, i just dont care about it right now. one of those things where its so big you just immediately disconnect from it even before you give it a try. maybe i will come around on it, but not today. we just took our completion badges and moved on. i then hopped onto Rowind to play Survive the 87 Disasters with Rose. this particular experience was not something i played as a child (at least i dont think?) but i am plenty familiar with the central concept and was vibing to some classic Roblox goodness. Rose let me know of a skateboard that i could buy from earned points, and then for pretty much the rest of the session, i just rode around on the skateboard. with basic skateboarding controls and some pretty alright sound design, i must say classic Roblox had some enjoyable boarding! (one of these days i will start taking skateboard lessons and board for real...) somehow one of the Disasters, a giant Roblox avatar enemy, did not get removed by the game after the round was over and it just proceeded to spawncamp us. we hopped over to Ro-Pictionary, where we effectively just cheated by telling each other what our words were. i also had some fun doing some purposefully obscure/bad clues, like for "House" i just drew the poster for the Criterion release of House. unfair? sure! but it was fun and also this is pictionary in Roblox so like who the fuck cares? as long as you arent hurting anyone, have fun with pictionary in Roblox. go wild even. but only as far as that wild goes without getting you removed from the platform though.

anyways, see you next time!