Lith's Diary - October

Dear Diary,
Happy Halloween! I've been a little too busy to bother doing anything big for the holiday this year, but I hope you had some fun with it. I always feel terribly silly trying to do a costume, but I know lots of people will have fun with it at any age.

Let's see... last month, we were talking about getting healthy and going out more! Did you remember? Did you go out and have lots of fun, and take care of yourself, and be social and stuff? You better! I've got a big pout just waiting for you if you didn't!

...I didn't do a great job of that myself, though, if I'm being honest. I did take some steps to get more social, which is a big achievement with how quiet I tend to be, but it hasn't amounted to a ton so far, and I still feel kinda low, like last month. I'm trying to take some time off to relax and clear my head, though, and hopefully will keep getting better from here!

I guess I've been playing a mix of games this month. The big one for a while was Oxygen Not Included. I'd dabbled in it a little now and then, but it's finally all completed and you can play through to the end, I guess. I... didn't make it that far. Honestly, I tried, and I think I got pretty far, but the game just... wow. I was playing on "casual" mode, and it was still very complicated and a pretty demanding balancing act trying to keep all your little clones alive, and then it just kept getting more complex and harder to balance. The basic idea is, you're trapped underground, surrounded by all these weird "biomes," and you have to keep your clone-workers alive and develop your technology while working in a sealed environment. You have to produce all of your own oxygen, deal with all of your waste, keep producing clean water, and a big one later on is just keeping your whole colony from slowly roasting alive from the heat production of your various machines. The game basically tracks every gram of matter and every joule of energy, and the more you develop, the bigger and more complex a list of problems you have to juggle.

For a while, it was incredibly engaging and I had a hard time putting the game down at all. It was hard, but I was learning a lot and I felt like if I kept going, I'd get over the hump and things would start getting easier. Usually, with games like this, once you get some important technologies in place, you kinda stop needing to worry about some things, and focus more on other things. That... doesn't seem to happen here. They just keep adding more things to worry about, and trying to handle any one of those new things usually makes all the things you've only barely got under control worse.

I'm sure that if I really kept at it, I could have learned all the new stuff, gotten the hang of it, and avoided roasting alive or whatever, but it was just so grueling, for so long, with no sign of actually feeling like "things are getting better" that I just... suddenly didn't want to play it anymore. Which is kinda frustrating? Maybe this game just isn't quite for me. Maybe this is one of those "super hardcore" games for people that want a nail-biting challenge, but in managing a colony instead of hitting monsters with swords. Or maybe I really am getting lazy! Or worse at games. I dunno. I just know that it was really engaging, but it felt like the design got a little out of hand, and I couldn't have fun with it anymore. Maybe I'll try it again someday, having a better feel for what's coming, and have an easier time of it. For now, it'll just be kind of a sad memory.

Other than that, I've been dipping back into Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch. They're both doing big Halloween events that tend to draw me in. I've rather enjoyed getting back into TF2 again, it's always a pretty nice thing to return to, though it can still be a little frustrating at times. Overwatch tends to be a little more frustration than fun, though. I think the matchmaking system kinda forces you to play against people that have played a ton recently while you're super rusty, while TF2 is just a mix of everyone playing from newbs to vets, so you get to always feel like you're still pretty good at the game once you're past that first hundred hours or so. But even when I played a lot, I remember finding it kinda frustrating... Overwatch has all these incredible, powerful, fun characters, and I really wanna play just about all of them... but I don't really want to play against any of them. I've said a few times I wish they had more stuff fighting NPCs in the game, and the halloween event is actually one of the times they do have some of that, so that's been nice to play again.

Actually, funny enough, the rumor mill is going crazy about a new Overwatch game coming soon-- supposedly, it will have a lot of PvE stuff like that! So if that's true, I have to admit I'm pretty excited about it. It looks like we should get confirmation on that in just a couple days now, so fingers crossed! It's interesting, and kinda funny, but it seems like Overwatch lifts a lot of its ideas for PvE content from the old PvE mode in TF2-- which, now I think of it, I should go back and play some more as well, I haven't touched that in ages! But yeah, I'm hoping that that news will pan out well, and I'll finally have the chance to really enjoy Overwatch again. I've wanted to for such a long time, but something in the design is always so... punishing. I hope this will fix all that.

Overall, this month has been pretty decent I think. A little frustrating, and maybe not as good as I'd hoped, but things have been getting a little better. That's always something to be thankful for. I hope things are getting better for you, too, Diary, even if it's just bit by bit. Sometimes that's all it takes to get yourself into a pretty good place in life! Sometimes we even do so without even noticing. I guess it's a month early to say count your blessings, though, haha. So for now, I hope you've had plenty of treats and some fun tricks!

Oh! And thank you for helping guide me through these crazy final days. I hope we can find a world we're happy with, together!

See you next month!
-Lith