Random Thoughts

Adventures in Game Development

2026-04-16T03:44:23Z

I've had this idea for a while about creating an incremental/idle game with a web browser interface, like Kittens Game, Theory of Magic or Farm RPG. Something about not having to render the game inside a box or separate environment appeals to me a lot, but also I already have some web development skills so there's bias there.

( blather about the development process )

My idea was to build a Cafe Management Sim that's something of a cross between a Cookie Clicker and Neko Atsume, where instead of cats* you are "collecting" customers, who are attracted by your menu items and other features of your cafe. I want it to be very community-focused - instead of the game deciding on available upgrades based on currency, customers will suggest new menu items or offer to stock you with specialty roasted coffee or cookies or whatever. There are milestone events/upgrades based on number of customers visited in day (upgrades increase your min/max visitors in a day and it chooses a random number of visited customers between those numbers daily).

All that's what I've built so far. I want customers to have dialogue events that would allow me to tell a story on top of the mechanics, and it's at this point I have realised a fatal flaw in my plan:

Now I need to create characters and actually write a story. /o\

(Also a long term goal is a graphical interface but that's far future!)

* Depending on decisions made with the graphical interface the customers may still be cats.

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What I Did in 2025

2025-12-31T09:58:31Z

Reading
The Spellshop - Sarah Beth Durst
Lady Eve's Last Con - Rebecca Fraimow
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
Sword Crossed - Freya Marske
Murder by Memory - Olivia Waite
Can't Spell Treason Without Tea - Rebecca Thorne
A Pirate's Life for Tea - Rebecca Thorne
Tea You at the Altar - Rebecca Thorne
The Kamogawa Food Detectives - Hisashi Kashiwa (translated by Jesse Kirkwood)
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes - Hisashi Kashiwa (translated by Jesse Kirkwood)
A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers
The Archive Undying - Emma Mieko Candon
Alchemy and a Cup of Tea - Rebecca Thorne
Death in the Cloisters - Valentina Morelli (translated by Edward Maltby)
Skysong - C. A. Wright
Queen Demon - Martha Wells
The Enchanted Greenhouse - Sarah Beth Durst
Menu of Happiness - Hisashi Kashiwa (translated by Jesse Kirkwood)
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy - Becky Chambers
Death at Noon - Valentina Morelli
The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett
A Drop of Corruption - Robert Jackson Bennett
Brigands and Breadknives - Travis Baldree

I got all of these from my libraries, so yay! Also I was catching the bus a lot and I turned mobile data off for all social media so I was motivated to read more.

Watching
Murderbot (Apple TV+)
Lots of YouTube

Playing
Farm RPG
Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket
Cats and Soup

Projects
A little more work on my static site generator.

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On actually enjoying games

2025-12-18T02:02:43Z

I quit two phone games recently and want to work through some feelings about it.

Farm RPG

I started playing Farm RPG a while back because I was looking for something that was like Stardew Valley but more idle focused.

On the surface this is the case, but it’s not so much an idle game as it is a clicker. Some resources accumulate over time once you've bought the upgrade, but for the most part you are clicking to obtain them. Fishing is a twitchy “click on the moving dot” affair. Farming involves waiting (minutes, hours, days) or expending an item, but is not very profitable.

There are villagers to befriend (not marry) and quests to complete, but there’s a cynical snideness to the writing that didn’t really work for me. Some quests require items you get from sending your animals to the slaughterhouse, which I didn't want to do and used workarounds that just take longer (weeks/months instead of days.)

All of this I could deal with but I’ve reached a point where I cannot progress in the story without putting the raptors I have raised in a fight club and I just don’t want to. They’re good raptors! The only alternative I could see would involve many, many more months of grinding.

And then one day I missed finishing my daily quests, took a step back and asked, am I actually enjoying this game? Am I looking forward to doing the daily tasks or is it tedious?

So I’ve stopped.

nb. there is a social aspect to the game which I turned off shortly after starting. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I engaged with the community.

Pokémon TCG Pocket

If you want the feeling of opening packets of collectible cards with cute art but don’t want the clutter or to spend actual money, this game is almost perfect! You can open 2 packs a day for free! You can make decks and battle (against the computer or online)!

You can spend real life currency on a monthly subscription to open an extra pack a day, or à la carte to reduce the time until you can open new packs. But I wasn’t even tempted.

I quit because quitting Farm RPG made me question if I actually enjoyed this game too, and I thought how long the app takes to load every time, how unlikely it is that I’ll ever complete my collections, how I always battled in auto mode because it was slow and not interesting to me… so I’ve quit.

What games have you recently quit? What are you Actually Enjoying right now?

I have been trying to read more but ironically most of the time this is more engaging than playing a game and leads to more time on my phone.

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Site update! (Sort of.)

2025-12-06T12:00:04Z

I ate'nt dead and all that...

We upgraded Ubuntu on our webserver, which upgraded PHP, which broke the CMS I was using for random.fangirling.net. The CMS (PicoCMS) is no longer supported or under active development, as is the way of such things, and it makes sense to me because the niche it filled - flat file CMSes - was quickly squeezed out by static site generators.

So I figured I should rebuild it using a static site generator (SSG), and spent some time playing around with Astro and Eleventy before I got too frustrated by how hard it was to build a site with the file structure I wanted. And then I thought, why did I spend all that time writing a static site generator if I wasn't going to use it?

And thus, here we are. random.fangirling.net is now mostly functional again. Please let me know if anything seems amiss!

The biggest thing that's missing is the breadcrumb navigation, which was the only kind of navigation I had on the site but which is difficult to generate with my script. So that's on the TODO list.

I thought I might make the code I use to generate the site public too, as a demo for how to use my makesite.py fork. Something to ponder!

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What I did in 2024

2024-12-31T14:53:34Z

Reading
System Collapse - Martha Wells
A Power Unbound - Freya Marske
Ocean's Echo - Everina Maxwell
The Mimicking of Known Successes - Malka Older

Live Shows
The National and Fleet Foxes
Stardew Valley Symphony of Seasons
A Walk in the Skies: A Tribute to Joe Hisaishi

I also joined my local urban sketching group, which has been a heap of fun and I highly recommend it if you think drawing on location sounds interesting.

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PlayFrame takes over Desert Bus for Hope, 2019

2024-08-30T11:15:35Z

And now for something completely different... As you may already know, I am a semi-regular viewer of the YouTube channel PlayFrame, in which Dan and Carrie Floyd play video games, and New Frame Plus, in which Dan Floyd does deep dives into video game animation.

Anyway I recently came across this clip from Desert Bus for Hope 2019, with Dan driving the bus and Carrie on the couch. It made me laugh very hard, so I am sharing it on Dreamwidth in the hopes that I will be able to find it again in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZYCBgt11z0
Notable excerpt: "Now do an episode of New Frame Plus but it's about the air freshener."

(Also, I guess I can now put faces to the voices, or at least their faces in 2019? Weird.)

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Fanfic site generator pre-alpha release

2024-07-05T06:53:04Z

I need to admit at this point, over a year later, that I have mentally checked out of this project and thus I am now releasing it into the wild, in its mostly-complete state.

This does not mean I don't plan to fix bugs or answer questions, or even provide configuration instructions that I can later turn into wiki entries, if anybody wants to actually use it! It's just that I want to work on other things more right now in my limited free time (I have more than I used to, but it's still limited).

In short, this is a Python script that will take a folder of AO3 HTML files and format them into a consistent style/template, and generate an index listing all the pages, including work metadata.

Many many thanks go to sqbr for helping document this mess! They are also to thank for most of the excellent fake fandom names in the sample content.

You can download the script here:
https://github.com/flamebyrd/makesite

If you'd like some handholding on setting this up, please feel free to drop me a comment or ping me on Discord, and I can make time to go through it with you. Definitely let me know if you use it so I can keep you informed of any changes!

I'm sure as soon as I put this out there I'll discover a ton of bugs or suddenly be inspired to make changes, so keep an eye on this post for updates!

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What I read* in 2023

2023-12-31T03:58:01Z

A Restless Truth - Freya Marske
The Knowledge - Martha Grimes
The Old Success - Martha Grimes**
Witch King - Martha Wells
Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree
Translation State - Ann Leckie
Bookshops & Bonedust - Travis Baldree

* While this annual post usually covers all media, I didn't watch any TV or movies, and I didn't listen to any scripted podcasts.

** I did not like this book and will provide a trigger warning here:

Show trigger warning

Warning: Child death. Contains a detailed point-of-view account of a father returning home to find his toddler drowned in a bathtub.

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Fanfic site generator update

2023-12-10T07:13:03Z

I swear, I'm still alive, it's just I was sick for a while and then just overwhelmed. But now I am taking steps to tackle this problem by writing out what still needs to be done.

Things required in order to release an alpha version:

Write quick setup instructions
Create sample content
Finalise default themes, including dark/light theme switcher
Test quick run shell script for OSX (Windows .cmd file is complete)
Document all configuration options and how to use them
Code walkthrough (like the original makesite.py)
Complete feature list
Document advanced usage, like single directory output
Check the dang thing into git (yes, yes, bad practice, I know)

Things not yet implemented that I would like to have by beta release:

JSON file output for use in frontend scripts
RSS support
Automated tests (yes, yes, bad practice, I know)

Basically I have a lot of documentation to write, and I just cannot seem to get into the headspace to do it /o\

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flamebyrd @ 2023-10-06T10:19:00

2023-10-06T02:19:13Z

Sunday: I have made some real progress on my static site generator project, I should be about ready to release a public alpha by the end of the week!
Monday: Surprise! Conjunctivitis!*

Maybe by the end of next week...

But if there's anyone reading this who would like to help me knock out any bugs/finalise features before the first release, please drop me a line!

Incidentally this project now has a tag, fanfic.py. This is not what the program itself is called but it is the title of my todo list for it.

* Only a surprise because my spouse had contracted it last Monday and I thought I might have escaped...

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Update: DIY Fanfic Archive Static HTML Generator idea

2023-08-13T09:06:55Z

So where am I up to with this? What I have right now you can give a folder of AO3-generated HTML files and it will output a list of works, including their tags, and format the works according to a custom template.

It works pretty well... as long as you have used all the metadata fields AO3 supports.

If, for example, your work doesn't have a category, or a relationship, or isn't in a series, it outputs ugly templating placeholders. This is because I based it on makesite.py, which has a very basic templating system.

There are multiple ways I could get around this, such as:
a) Add a(nother) field to the configuration to allow us to define the format, label and wrapper for every metadata field. Achieves the aim in a flexible way but is fiddly and requires more documentation.
b) Replace the individual metadata fields with one big metadata block that are all formatted the same way. Not flexible if you want to display work metadata in a Non-AO3 way.
c) Just give in and implement Jinja2 templating, which allows the use of if/else/then structures in the templates, among many other features. Will still require some documentation but at least it's a useful skill for people who are new to it (as opposed to learning something unique to this system). I've never used it before but I have used the PHP equivalent so hopefully it's transferable.

So I think I'm going to have to go with option c. (The list of changes in my git fork is going to be ridiculous.) This will still be useful if I decide to output Hugo-friendly Markdown in the future.

( List of features it currently supports )

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On that DIY Fanfic Archive Generator idea

2023-08-04T03:15:30Z

I've been sick this week, which has sapped most of my physical ability so I've been mostly sitting around resting, but mentally I'm... not fine, but functional, so I've been poking at the idea I mentioned in my last post about using a static site generator to manage your personal fanfic archive (a la Melannen's tutorial).

The biggest hurdle I'm hitting is that I'm not actually sure what I want to create. Is it:
a) A script and tutorial for importing an existing collection of AO3-generated HTML files into Hugo (or something similar), extracting the metadata from the AO3 files and reformatting it for use in Hugo, with sample HTML templates and tips for how to manage the site in Hugo going forwards, or
b) An entirely customised static site generator (based on makesite.py that works on a folder of AO3-generated HTML files (and potentially non-AO3 generated files too) and generates the entire site based on the metadata in those files, with granular options for how things should be grouped/sorted/etc.

Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages to both! Option b) is going to be a lot more work, both initially and ongoing, so naturally that's what I've been focusing on so far. But I feel probably option a) is the more sensible direction to go?

If this idea sounds interesting to you, what would you want out of it? You don't need to work off my suggested options, just share your vision!

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An update!

2023-07-08T06:38:12Z

It's been exactly 4 months so I suppose I should post to say I'm still around! I just don't have a lot of free time right now.

Website
My website was down for a couple of days, so I'm sorry if that affected anyone! I have pondered switching to a static HTML site generator instead of what I'm currently using, which would avoid this happening again, but see above re: free time. (If I do, I will write a tutorial for how to do it, specifically to make your own fanfic archive so you can upload a work and it automatically adds it to whatever index pages you want and then upload it anywhere that supports plain static HTML... let me know if that's of interest to anyone.)

A couple of people have emailed me with bug reports and feature requests recently, so there have been some changes:

AO3 Statistics CSV Bookmarklet: Should now work properly with Unicode characters (e.g. Chinese, Japanese) and quotation marks in titles

AO3 Works List CSV Bookmarklet: Now includes the work's recipient (if available). I also reordered the columns so apologies if that's messed everything up for you.

Games
Theory of Magic (AKA Arcanum). A couple of years ago my brother linked me to this idle/clicker game where you work a wizard up through the ranks. I suddenly remembered it the other day, figured a game where you mostly just let it sit there and do its thing was perfect for my life right now, and have been playing for almost a week at this point. Documentation is very light so it's a "discover it as you go along" sort of thing - there's a new wiki with very little information, an old wiki with lots of info that's only available on web.archive.org, a Reddit that is mostly inactive (but at least not private) and a Discord I haven't joined. But I'm having fun!

Beastieball: This is a Kickstarter for a new game by the people behind Chicory and Wandersong, both of which I loved! It seems to be a Pokemon-like Volleyball RPG. It's fully funded but they are still working on stretch goals so check it out if that sounds fun to you!

Twitter
I finally quit Twitter - Tweetdeck going away was the final straw. Still figuring out how best to fill the idle-scrolling/refreshing void in my life. Maybe I need to pick up a game?

Reading
I picked up a copy of Witch King by Martha Wells but I haven't had the chance to read it yet. I recently reread Death of the Necromancer (which is getting an updated rerelease soon) and the Fall of Ile-Rien, which I still enjoyed. I also picked up the Murderbot audiobooks in a Humble Bundle (which has already ended, sorry) so I'm looking forward to listening to those someday.

Food
I got an Instant Pot after a deep anxiety spiral about trying to reduce the amount of cooking with gas I do. I've never used a pressure cooker OR a slow cooker before! If you are a multi-cooker user and have favourite (vegetarian) recipes, please send them my way!

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Update on the social media situation

2023-03-08T01:46:15Z

Tumblr
Previously on Dreamwidth: Tumblr suspended my account with no explanation on January 13th. Today I heard from Tumblr support who said it was a glitch on their end and is now fixed. I can log in to Tumblr again! Now to figure out what sort of content I want to see on Tumblr and work it into my daily routine.

Mastodon
I decided to postpone any decision on finding a new Mastodon instance until I have enough energy to actually devote time to finding people and creating content.

Twitter
Is still there, somehow. Still only using it to track Twitch streamers. I miss Tweetbot.

Discord
I am Flamebyrd#3354 on Discord if you want to chat! I'm not active in any servers right now though.

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In the continuing saga of my social media accounts

2023-01-31T05:04:25Z

I went to log in to my fandom.ink account with a view to using that instead of Twitter and found that account has also been suspended. No explanation was provided but presumably it was for inactivity.

Sigh! Are there any other fandom friendly Mastodon instances that people use? (Does this suspension mean that people using fandom.ink wouldn't even be able to follow me on other instances? I have no idea. Edit: The reason I ask is that the message I got from fandom.ink when I logged in said they would "retain some basic data to prevent you from evading the suspension".)

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This is not my day for social media.

2023-01-13T07:42:54Z

I mostly quit Twitter early last year for mental health reasons, so since then I've just been using a single list to get notified when the speedrunners I'm interested in go live. (I don't have a Twitch account.) Today I tried to log in to Tweetbot and got an authentication error. It seems like the API that 3rd-party apps use for Twitter is currently down. Malice or incompetence? There's no official word yet.

So, bored, I opened the Tumblr app and got an authentication error. Weird, I thought, and logged out and in again. Incorrect username or password, it said. So I tried to log in using the website and it told me my account was deactivated.

I've had no communication from Tumblr about why this may have happened! I've opened a Support ticket but no response (not even an automated one) yet. My working theory, based on this post on Medium is that since I've only used my Tumblr to crosspost from Dreamwidth for a few years, it was terminated (possibly by a bot) as a spam account. From this subReddit I at least know I'm not alone.

Weird choice on their part if they're trying to tempt away users from the slowly-dying Twitter, but what do I know.

At least there's still Dreamwidth ♥

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What I read, watched or listened to in 2022

2023-01-01T01:03:30Z

This has been a very busy year and I don't have a lot to log, but I don't want to break my streak of posting these! I missed my usual December 31 date so I'll probably backdate this entry after a week or so.

Books
Suradanna and the Sea - Rebecca Fraimow
A Marvellous Light - Freya Marske
A Master of Djinn - P. Djèlí Clark
The Library Book - Susan Orlean
The Affair of the Mysterious Letter - Alexis Hall
False Value - Ben Aaronovitch (Audiobook)
What Abigail did that Summer - Ben Aaronovitch (Audiobook)

Games
Moonglow Bay (2021)

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Assorted things: AGDQ, Booster, AO3 CSV bookmarklet

2022-01-09T23:14:49Z

I'm experimenting with using headings for these sorts of posts rather than bullet points... does this work for people or would you rather the bullet points?

Awesome Games Done Quick
Awesome Games Done Quick 2022, the January edition of the twice-annual Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon, is on right now, raising money for the Prevent Cancer foundation. It's always a great time and I recommend checking it out! Most runners (and/or their commentators) do their very best to make it understandable to newcomers and everyone is generally having a great time, even when it goes horribly wrong.

Booster
I got my COVID-19 booster! For those who are wondering, I got Pfizer Pfizer Moderna, and I had reactions to the second Pfizer and the Moderna - aches and pains and fever in both cases. Public Service Announcement: The entirety of a household should not have a vaccine on the same day, our house was very miserable.

AO3 CSV bookmarklet
Yesterday I had an email from an AO3 user asking if it was possible to make my AO3 CSV bookmarklet include extra information from the History page, like the number of times visited and whether it's updated since last visit. This seemed reasonable so I quickly whipped up a beta version of the bookmarklet to accomplish that. Check it out if that would be useful to you!

If anyone has any other requests (other than making it work on more than one page of results at once, although if you do want that I recommend checking out naye's post about using Page Zipper for this), please let me know!

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What I read, watched or listened to in 2021

2021-12-31T00:30:26Z

Links go to my Dreamwidth post about the work.

Books
New Times, New Hell - 林知落
Winter's Orbit - Everina Maxwell
The King's Avatar - Butterfly Blue
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 - P. Djèlí Clark
A Dead Djinn in Cairo - P. Djèlí Clark
Any Way the Wind Blows - Rainbow Rowell
Copper Coins - Musuli
One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston
Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells
First-Class Lawyer - Musuli [in progress]

Games
Ikenfell (2021)
Donut County (2018)
Tetris Effect (2018)
Chicory: A Colorful Tale (2021)
Mini Metro (2015)
Unpacking (2021)

TV
The King's Avatar (2019) [in progress]

Music
Tetris Effect Original Soundtrack
Ikenfell (Original Game Soundtrack)
Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Original Soundtrack)
Moonglow Bay (Original Soundtrack)

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Assorted things.

2021-12-14T12:20:26Z

Time is passing
My LiveJournal is now old enough to drink in the country it was "born" in* (link goes to my tweet with a screenshot of the email they sent me).

I haven't used LiveJournal in several years now but I never deleted my account and now I'm paying the price, I guess.

*If I am right in my assumption that LiveJournal was hosted in the USA when I joined.

Story Mode: Final Fantasy XIV
PlayFrame has started a Let's Play of Final Fantasy XIV solely focused on the main storyline! I am enjoying it so far, even though at this point it's still very much a MMORPG plot. The playlist of all episodes to date is here. MMOs are not good for my mental health so I'm glad for this chance to experience some of the story of this Critically Acclaimed MMORPG (TM).

Card Poll
My holiday card poll is still open! Although at this point they will almost certainly be late holiday cards (depending on your holiday). If you just want to get on my birthday card list (no guarantees, I'm a terrible procrastinator), feel free to leave the holiday-related questions blank.

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It's a holiday card poll!

2021-11-27T12:42:54Z

I have, over the past couple of years, accumulated a vast amount of card-making supplies, and I never make cards. Therefore, I would like to send cards to people on the internet!

View Poll: Holiday cards

* Please note that if this is chosen with an animal you are likely to receive an animal wearing a santa hat.

Sentiments are intended to be suggestions, not prescriptive. All occasions are welcome!

Themes and motifs are chosen from the materials I have available. Make of that what you will.

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Assorted good things

2021-11-22T10:38:11Z

Things have been pretty rough recently for various reasons, so I'm going to distract myself from all that by talking about a few things which have been bringing me joy.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0
A couple of months ago I decided to do a bit of date manipulation to finish off the art collection (by resetting the same day over and over) so I could finish my museum and maybe quit the game. I accomplished this, and Nintendo promptly announced a huge update with thousands of new items and new things to do every day. So I'm back on that horse and loving it again.

I've updated my dream at DA-4989-3336-9453. It's been raining so once again there are flowers everywhere, and I've rearranged a few things so all my spare flowers are hanging out on the beach. Which is to say, if you need flowers, please let me know! New things since last time are a new entrance with two bridges, a farm area, the beginnings of a treehouse, and a redesigned museum garden. Also, the clock room is getting out of control.

I also spent way too much money on packs of the new Amiibo cards so if anybody wants to trade doubles, I'm in!

Speedrunning
Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Nintendo Switch remakes of the 2006 Nintendo DS games, were released the other day. I mention this not because I'm playing them (I'm not), but because the speedrunners have discovered a ton of new glitches and strategies to go fast, and I'm loving watching how excited they are to find them. So far this includes:
- If you turn the music off, the game skips all the level up and healing jingles and it shaves minutes off the run.
- If you hatch an egg in front of a particular NPC he will no longer block you from proceeding to Sunyshore City while it is experiencing a blackout
- If you use surf immediately after fighting a trainer near the water, you can float over the terrain (or under it) and progress the story in unintended ways, including by skipping Victory Road completely

It's still early days and they're still trying to figure out what categories and rules to formalise on the leaderboards, not to mention the risk that any of these glitches could be patched at any time, but it's the discovery process that's bringing me joy anyway.

Mini Metro (iOS)
Friendship ended with desktop PC version, now mobile version is my best friend. I'm not going to say I'm good at it, but I also haven't linked it to any social media, which means it won't show the global leaderboards, so I have no idea! I'm finding I get the most joy by coming up with my own challenges, usually "only use the 3 lines it starts with".

Unpacking (PC/Switch/Xbox)
This is a very fun, short puzzle game about unpacking a person's boxes into various dwellings over their lifetime. It has a wonderfully subtle type of storytelling, as you get to know the person through their belongings, what changes and what goes with them from house to house, along with the decisions you have to make about where to put their belongings in each house. Very cute pixel art, some of it very nostalgic. It's short for how expensive it is, but I really enjoyed it. Since I finished the main story, I'm just achievement-hunting now.

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Book: 铜钱龛世/Tong Qian Kan Shi/Copper Coins by 木苏里/Musuli

2021-10-17T01:21:27Z

So what happened here was that my friend and I came across a promo Tweet for the upcoming manhua adaptation of this Chinese webnovel which had a very poorly translated summary, and in the course of finding a better summary I became intrigued enough to read the first couple of chapters of the translated novel and then I finished it within 48 hours.

It's omniscient POV, like most Chinese webnovels I've read, but you're mostly in the head of Xue Xian, who is a very arrogant, belligerent millennia-old black dragon. His narration is frequently hilarious. The love interest is an amnesiac monk - the strong, silent type.

I really loved all the characters in this and I found the ending very satisfying and romantic! It's very readable too, I didn't find it dragged too much and each chapter left me eager to read the next. Even though the content is quite serious the tone is very light.

( Content notes: )

( Vaguely spoilery musing. )

I read JQ's translation. Translator's introduction is here, then you can get to Chapter 1 here, and once you reach the end of the edited translation you can access Chapter 63 from here.

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Fanfic: Strategic Retreat (The King's Avatar, Han Wenqing/Ye Xiu, AU)

2021-10-15T11:43:49Z

I haven't written anything in well over a year, but sometimes an idea just won't let you go.

Strategic Retreat (2689 words) by Flamebyrd
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 全职高手 - 蝴蝶蓝 | Quánzhí Gāoshǒu - Húdié Lán, 全职高手 | The King's Avatar (Live Action TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hán Wénqīng/Yè Xiū, Hán Wénqīng/Yè Xiū/Glory
Characters: Hán Wénqīng, Yè Xiū, Zhāng Xīnjié
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Light Angst, Rivalry, Bickering, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Sharing a Bed, sometimes a family can be two people and a video game
Summary:
Han Wenqing waved off the anxious front desk staff and planted himself in front of the slumped figure. "You must have a death wish, coming here in the middle of the season."
In which Ye Xiu makes himself Han Wenqing's problem, and Han Wenqing is up for the challenge.

( More Author's Notes )

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Novel/TV: The King's Avatar, by Butterfly Blue

2021-10-05T10:19:34Z

A couple of months ago my friend told me she was watching and really enjoying a Chinese drama on Netflix that was:
- Just like a sports manga, except about online gaming
- Almost entirely romance-free
- Featuring a healthy dose of secret identity shenanigans

Sold, I said! Except that I'm very bad at watching things, so I decided to seek out the novel instead. It hooked me very quickly, and then I realised it was over 3 million words long.

Anyway so I read it all, accidentally through less-than-legal means because the officially-licensed site that hosts it did not make it at all clear that all chapters beyond 90 were behind a poorly-described paywall, not just a login requirement. I'm not going to say I read every word - a lot of the battle sequences (and there are many) I just skimmed for dialogue.

And then I convinced my spouse to watch the live-action drama with me! We're up to episode 20 and really enjoying it, with a couple of caveats:
- When the show is trying to be funny, it gets extremely cringey
- We really want to punch some of the antagonists in the face
- Sometimes the heartfelt speeches about the power of Glory get a bit cheesy

There is an animation available too (on YouTube, legally) that I would like to watch eventually if I can convince anybody to do it with me.

So, am I recommending this? If you love long drawn out sports power fantasies about being the absolute very best at the game while mentoring new and under-appreciated players into greatness, definitely check it out! If you don't, I don't know that it will make you a fan of the genre. It really shines in showing the way all the pro players know each other and relate to each other as friends and rivals both on and off the field (as it were), and the mentorship parts can be really touching. There are also moments that are completely heartbreaking. The protagonist is an asshole but somehow I love him anyway, and the secondary (and tertiary) characters almost all have distinguishable traits that makes them memorable and fun.

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