Back home now, exhausted and feeling low. After four days with no space from people, working a job I didn't know how to do in a team of experienced professionals, sharing hotel rooms, sharing all mealtimes, I was craving locking myself in my room and being alone. Craving not having to act in any particular way, not having to stay busy, just getting to pull my boots off and unbutton my tight work trousers and collapse.
But as soon as I did that I felt myself deflate. It’s like I unzipped the politeness and niceness and good mood that I was wearing because I had to, and what was left underneath was nothing, just blankness.
Oh I don’t feel good. Crappy and tired and irritable and goopy. I’ve not gone out for food, we had a big lunch and I can’t be bothered to eat anything else. I’ve sat and looked on the Internet, watched Killing Eve on iPlayer, which everyone was banging on about on Radio 2 every time we were in the van, that and Bodyguard, which I’ve not seen either, but that one is now is so popular that I hate it on principle, and Killing Eve sounded the more interesting of the two. I’ve watched two episodes now, and I like the characters, I like the actors, I like the moments of verisimilitude juxtaposed with the more outlandish elements, but the narrative isn’t wholly gripping me so far. It’s silly, I’m not sure I believe it, and at its core it’s not much different from a million other cat-and-mouse agent-and-criminal stories. But then maybe I just don’t like it because I’m feeling depressed and I don’t like anything when I’m feeling depressed.
Meh. Not got anything else tonight. Maybe another episode and then a big sleep will help. Back at the pub tomorrow. Gash.
Thursday, 27 September 2018
Wednesday, 26 September 2018
Day 152: Builds
Another day down. We were grafting in the man mines until 1ish, and then it was a lot of standing around, finding little jobs to do, waiting on various people, touching up paintwork, flattening vinyl stickers, that kind of thing.
Steve and his dad are good at their jobs. It's a running joke that for years when Steve told me he worked as a joiner with his old man I pictured them knocking together bird boxes in the garage of the family home. In actuality they're a hugely popular firm who make enormous displays for the country's biggest tool manufacturers.
The amount of work that goes into the shows is staggering. Clients are met and requirements hammered out. Designs and plans are mocked up on 3D modelling software. The clients choose from options, changes are made, iterations iterated upon. Months are spent cutting wood, measuring, sanding, assembling, painting. Graphics are printed. Banners made. Pieces are labelled. All the bits are loaded onto the vans. The tools. The barrows. The tubs of wires and plugs and screws and palettes and pipes. The vans are driven halfway across the country, everything is unloaded, carried to the stand space.
The stand finally goes up, often for the first time fully since it was conceived, with all the stress of worrying whether it will actually work. But they've done it so many times, have the experience to know what it'll be like, how many pieces to build the walls out of, how to structure the supports, how to raise them, where to feed the wires.
And hooking up all the electrics, daisy-chaining the bulbs, running extension leads.
And inevitably a million tiny things go wrong, and they have to take each one in their stride, brainstorm solutions, get to work against the clock. To be able to shrug and laugh enough to not let the pressure crush them, but to take it seriously enough to always solve the problems. I guess this mindset is key to so much.
And they gouge chunks out of their shins, and scrape their hands, and bruise their arms. They get cramp in the legs and end up massaging themselves in the hotel bathroom in the middle of the night.
And finally they drive home, for a night, or two, while the show is actually on, and then drive back for the evening of the last day, when the public leave, and start disassembling it all, break it down rapidly and effectively, pack it all back in the vans, and take it home.
Abd over the busiest period they're doing three or four shows a week, Steve somewhere in the country, his dad somewhere else.
I mean, I'm utterly fucked, shattered and sore, and I've only worked a handful of days, doing the easier jobs, not worrying about design or organisation or anything with any responsibility.
So I'm impressed, I'll admit. The skill and strength and stamina is impressive. There's no way I could do it.
Although I am still better than Steve at Mario Kart, and that's what really matters. So at least I've got that.
Passing out now, in the hotel bedroom, with Steve snoring in the bed beside me and QI on in the background. Last day of the build tomorrow, then two days back at the pub, then coming back for break down, then a day working at the pub, then finally I've got a day off. Christ I'll be ready for it.
Steve and his dad are good at their jobs. It's a running joke that for years when Steve told me he worked as a joiner with his old man I pictured them knocking together bird boxes in the garage of the family home. In actuality they're a hugely popular firm who make enormous displays for the country's biggest tool manufacturers.
The amount of work that goes into the shows is staggering. Clients are met and requirements hammered out. Designs and plans are mocked up on 3D modelling software. The clients choose from options, changes are made, iterations iterated upon. Months are spent cutting wood, measuring, sanding, assembling, painting. Graphics are printed. Banners made. Pieces are labelled. All the bits are loaded onto the vans. The tools. The barrows. The tubs of wires and plugs and screws and palettes and pipes. The vans are driven halfway across the country, everything is unloaded, carried to the stand space.
The stand finally goes up, often for the first time fully since it was conceived, with all the stress of worrying whether it will actually work. But they've done it so many times, have the experience to know what it'll be like, how many pieces to build the walls out of, how to structure the supports, how to raise them, where to feed the wires.
And hooking up all the electrics, daisy-chaining the bulbs, running extension leads.
And inevitably a million tiny things go wrong, and they have to take each one in their stride, brainstorm solutions, get to work against the clock. To be able to shrug and laugh enough to not let the pressure crush them, but to take it seriously enough to always solve the problems. I guess this mindset is key to so much.
And they gouge chunks out of their shins, and scrape their hands, and bruise their arms. They get cramp in the legs and end up massaging themselves in the hotel bathroom in the middle of the night.
And finally they drive home, for a night, or two, while the show is actually on, and then drive back for the evening of the last day, when the public leave, and start disassembling it all, break it down rapidly and effectively, pack it all back in the vans, and take it home.
Abd over the busiest period they're doing three or four shows a week, Steve somewhere in the country, his dad somewhere else.
I mean, I'm utterly fucked, shattered and sore, and I've only worked a handful of days, doing the easier jobs, not worrying about design or organisation or anything with any responsibility.
So I'm impressed, I'll admit. The skill and strength and stamina is impressive. There's no way I could do it.
Although I am still better than Steve at Mario Kart, and that's what really matters. So at least I've got that.
Passing out now, in the hotel bedroom, with Steve snoring in the bed beside me and QI on in the background. Last day of the build tomorrow, then two days back at the pub, then coming back for break down, then a day working at the pub, then finally I've got a day off. Christ I'll be ready for it.
Tuesday, 25 September 2018
Day 151: Echoes
I'm tired. Being a man is tiring. We put up a lot of wood today. Lifted a lot of light boxes. Hefted a lot of... No, that's all the names of Man Things that I know. Wood and light boxes. And lightboxes aren't even that manly, although when they're three metres long and being hoisted four metres in the air, they feel pretty manly.
Toolbars. That's another thing. Didn't really do much with them though. Twobeh. That's one. That's just wood again, but when it's thin planks of wood you call it two-by-four, or you just call it twobeh, so all the other men know you're in the gang.
Lunchtime is good when you're a real man. You get sandwiches and cheese and onion crisps and a can of coke and a little bar of Dairy Milk, and let me tell you, us real men looove our little bars of Dairy Milk.
What else do we like? We like the crisp morning frost on the windshield of the van before we drive out of the hotel car park when the sun is still rising and the sky is golden. We like how the voices echo in the empty convention centre early in the day. We like the repeating corrugated ceiling strips that go back and back into the distant mists, endlessly, making the hall look like the cavernous hangar from some dystopian science-fiction film. We like hanging tools from our belts. Taking the weight of a large lightbox above our heads with three other men, and knowing that none of us will let the others down. Being at the top of a ladder with a view onto the unpainted tops of all the displays, seeing people in high-vis vests scuttling about, feeling the energy and concentration in the air. We like working with our hands, the honest joy of a job grounded in the physical world done well. The smell of the wood. The strange mindfulness, tranquility, of the work. Looking at our achievements at the end of the day and thinking, We did that, that was us.
But most of all we like little bars of Dairy Milk. Oh boy do we love them.
Steve is out of the shower now so going to get ready and go for tea in the hotel restaurant, then some cheeky Switching, then a bloody good sleep. Aces.
Toolbars. That's another thing. Didn't really do much with them though. Twobeh. That's one. That's just wood again, but when it's thin planks of wood you call it two-by-four, or you just call it twobeh, so all the other men know you're in the gang.
Lunchtime is good when you're a real man. You get sandwiches and cheese and onion crisps and a can of coke and a little bar of Dairy Milk, and let me tell you, us real men looove our little bars of Dairy Milk.
What else do we like? We like the crisp morning frost on the windshield of the van before we drive out of the hotel car park when the sun is still rising and the sky is golden. We like how the voices echo in the empty convention centre early in the day. We like the repeating corrugated ceiling strips that go back and back into the distant mists, endlessly, making the hall look like the cavernous hangar from some dystopian science-fiction film. We like hanging tools from our belts. Taking the weight of a large lightbox above our heads with three other men, and knowing that none of us will let the others down. Being at the top of a ladder with a view onto the unpainted tops of all the displays, seeing people in high-vis vests scuttling about, feeling the energy and concentration in the air. We like working with our hands, the honest joy of a job grounded in the physical world done well. The smell of the wood. The strange mindfulness, tranquility, of the work. Looking at our achievements at the end of the day and thinking, We did that, that was us.
But most of all we like little bars of Dairy Milk. Oh boy do we love them.
Steve is out of the shower now so going to get ready and go for tea in the hotel restaurant, then some cheeky Switching, then a bloody good sleep. Aces.
Monday, 24 September 2018
Day 150: Road
Quick one this morning. I’m on the road with Steve for four days from today, staying in some Premier Inn just inside the M25 while setting up the biggest trade show of Steve’s calendar. Work trousers and tape measure and crawling sense of insecurity masked by boisterous banter at the ready!
I’m not going to have much chance to write, so these posts will only be short ones until the weekend. I’ll have to type them on my phone, probably in the hotel room after long and tiring days, so who knows what they’ll be like.
Anyway, I’ve had my croissant and fruit smoothie (us working men love croissants and fruit smoothies), packed my bag, got my Naomi Klein book (us working men love reading Naomi Klein), and I’m ready to go.
Hopefully I'll get time for some cheeky Switch gaming on the drive down as well. Us working men love cheeky Switch gaming.
See ya!
I’m not going to have much chance to write, so these posts will only be short ones until the weekend. I’ll have to type them on my phone, probably in the hotel room after long and tiring days, so who knows what they’ll be like.
Anyway, I’ve had my croissant and fruit smoothie (us working men love croissants and fruit smoothies), packed my bag, got my Naomi Klein book (us working men love reading Naomi Klein), and I’m ready to go.
Hopefully I'll get time for some cheeky Switch gaming on the drive down as well. Us working men love cheeky Switch gaming.
See ya!
Day 149: Switch impressions (cont.)
So yesterday I ran through my gaming habits and the titles I've been playing on my Nintendo Switch. Now for the hardware itself...
I couldn't imagine a better console for the type of gaming I do these days. After a long shift I can play it for twenty minutes in bed. I can play it in the passenger seat of Steve’s van while he drives us to some exhibition centre at some ungodly hour of the morning. On my days off I can drop the Switch into its dock and play it in higher resolution, with the Pro Controller, on my TV, sat languorously slumped in my chair.
It is an elegant, robust piece of kit. It exudes style, unlike recent Nintendo products that have felt like cheap plastic tat. The lines and curves are still playful, yet seriously so; it feels expensive, exquisite, carefully manufactured.
At heart the Switch is a rugged tablet, housed in reassuringly thick plastic. The screen is a capacitive touchscreen, like phones and tablets, and unlike Nintendo’s previous Wii U and 3DS, which used far cheaper and clunkier resistive touchscreens. Its resolution is 720p, which is lower than most phones, but absolutely high enough for gaming. Nintendo’s approach here is for more colour and complexity in their game worlds, running at lower resolution to maintain smooth frame-rates and extend battery life, and it is the correct choice. At 1080p the games would have to pare back their textures and effects to such a degree to get the experience playable that it wouldn’t be worth it. The display is bright and clear, and games look fantastic in portable mode; it all works a treat.
But so what’s the difference between the Switch and a small tablet or large phone, apart from access to all Nintendo’s proprietary software, including its exclusive games? Well have you ever tried playing properly involved games on a phone? Not puzzle games, casual games, things where you prod lazily at the screen and wait while your villagers harvest more minerals or your garden grows. Complex 3D environments that you must navigate, real-time combat systems with nuance and depth?
It’s a mess. Poking a finger at a flat panel with no feedback is not a recipe for control. Think of how many mistakes you make while typing a sentence on Whatsapp. Imagine if every one of those mistakes resulted in the death of your playable character. The margin for error is too high, and there’s not enough variety in what you can do.
Nothing beats physical controls. Buttons and joysticks. So with the Switch you get two halves of a physical controller that slot onto each side of the tablet, turning it into something more akin to a very high-tech Gameboy. The Joy-Cons, as the controls are called, can be slid off and held independently of the unit and of each other, with the screen balanced on its kickstand, on a tray table or a kitchen counter or whatever you’ve got nearby. And best of all they can be turned 90 degrees and each held as a tiny rudimentary controller in themselves, giving you access to two-player multiplayer wherever you go.
But so what’s the difference between the Switch and a small tablet or large phone, apart from access to all Nintendo’s proprietary software, including its exclusive games? Well have you ever tried playing properly involved games on a phone? Not puzzle games, casual games, things where you prod lazily at the screen and wait while your villagers harvest more minerals or your garden grows. Complex 3D environments that you must navigate, real-time combat systems with nuance and depth?
It’s a mess. Poking a finger at a flat panel with no feedback is not a recipe for control. Think of how many mistakes you make while typing a sentence on Whatsapp. Imagine if every one of those mistakes resulted in the death of your playable character. The margin for error is too high, and there’s not enough variety in what you can do.
Nothing beats physical controls. Buttons and joysticks. So with the Switch you get two halves of a physical controller that slot onto each side of the tablet, turning it into something more akin to a very high-tech Gameboy. The Joy-Cons, as the controls are called, can be slid off and held independently of the unit and of each other, with the screen balanced on its kickstand, on a tray table or a kitchen counter or whatever you’ve got nearby. And best of all they can be turned 90 degrees and each held as a tiny rudimentary controller in themselves, giving you access to two-player multiplayer wherever you go.
The Joycons look lovely, elegant little boutique items, and they’re nice and clicky, and the joysticks are good. They’re not up to the standard of a proper controller, and, yes, you can’t get round the fact they’re a little cramped - but compared to other portable console controls they’re in a league of their own.
And when you’re by your TV it doesn’t matter, because you drop the Switch into its dock, with AC adapter and HDMI lead, and it becomes a home console, played over your TV, using the Pro Controller, which I prefer to the Sony PS4 controller, and like about as much as the Xbox One offering.
The Switch is underpowered as a home console next to the PS4 and Xbox One, certainly so compared to a £1500+ PC, but the parity feels closer than between the Wii and PS3. And anyway, the Switch is a different beast. I’ve got my PS4 for the two or three major releases (the games industry calls them triple-A games, like Hollywood blockbusters, your Call of Duties and Grand Theft Autos et al) each year that I’m not too overcome with boredom to actually play, and for all the more interesting indie and lower-rung titles the Switch is more than up to the task. And of course there are the Nintendo games, Zelda and Mario and the like, that you can only get on the Switch, so the question of comparable power is moot.
So yes. I love my Switch. Nintendo need to really push the indie angle for the machine to continue to be a success - their own release schedule is too sparse, and too beholden to established franchises. If they threw a load of money into new IPs I’d be over the moon, but the prospect of yet another Mario Tennis and Mario Golf and Mario Party and Mario Screams into the Void for Twenty Hours Straight doesn’t exactly fill me with excitement.
I want every worthwhile indie game to come to Switch, as soon as possible after its release on Steam, and I want the larger studios to dedicate teams specifically to Switch development, to create titles faster and cheaper than triple-A, with more focus on experimentation and unique mechanics than on ray-tracing water reflections at 4k resolutions on the supercharged Xbox One X.
And I want Nintendo’s back catalogue of SNES and N64 and Gamecube games to come out on the Switch’s eShop, or even as freebies for subscribers to the online service. At the moment we’ve got a handful of NES games from three-and-a-bit decades ago, that don’t even play well on the Joycon’s little buttons (and they’ve mapped the controls for Super Mario Bros. 3 wrong for the Pro Controller, which you can’t grapple sideways like you could the original NES pad). I want Super Metroid and I want Metroid Prime and I want them now!
But in honesty there are ten or fifteen beautiful looking indie games I’ve already got my eye on for a download when I’ve played through what I’ve got - Celeste and Golf Story and Thimbleweed Park and Night in the Woods and Stardew Valley and Sonic Mania and Axiom Verge, and on…
And I’m going to be playing Breath of Wild until I’m 90 anyway, so screw it.
And when you’re by your TV it doesn’t matter, because you drop the Switch into its dock, with AC adapter and HDMI lead, and it becomes a home console, played over your TV, using the Pro Controller, which I prefer to the Sony PS4 controller, and like about as much as the Xbox One offering.
The Switch is underpowered as a home console next to the PS4 and Xbox One, certainly so compared to a £1500+ PC, but the parity feels closer than between the Wii and PS3. And anyway, the Switch is a different beast. I’ve got my PS4 for the two or three major releases (the games industry calls them triple-A games, like Hollywood blockbusters, your Call of Duties and Grand Theft Autos et al) each year that I’m not too overcome with boredom to actually play, and for all the more interesting indie and lower-rung titles the Switch is more than up to the task. And of course there are the Nintendo games, Zelda and Mario and the like, that you can only get on the Switch, so the question of comparable power is moot.
So yes. I love my Switch. Nintendo need to really push the indie angle for the machine to continue to be a success - their own release schedule is too sparse, and too beholden to established franchises. If they threw a load of money into new IPs I’d be over the moon, but the prospect of yet another Mario Tennis and Mario Golf and Mario Party and Mario Screams into the Void for Twenty Hours Straight doesn’t exactly fill me with excitement.
I want every worthwhile indie game to come to Switch, as soon as possible after its release on Steam, and I want the larger studios to dedicate teams specifically to Switch development, to create titles faster and cheaper than triple-A, with more focus on experimentation and unique mechanics than on ray-tracing water reflections at 4k resolutions on the supercharged Xbox One X.
And I want Nintendo’s back catalogue of SNES and N64 and Gamecube games to come out on the Switch’s eShop, or even as freebies for subscribers to the online service. At the moment we’ve got a handful of NES games from three-and-a-bit decades ago, that don’t even play well on the Joycon’s little buttons (and they’ve mapped the controls for Super Mario Bros. 3 wrong for the Pro Controller, which you can’t grapple sideways like you could the original NES pad). I want Super Metroid and I want Metroid Prime and I want them now!
But in honesty there are ten or fifteen beautiful looking indie games I’ve already got my eye on for a download when I’ve played through what I’ve got - Celeste and Golf Story and Thimbleweed Park and Night in the Woods and Stardew Valley and Sonic Mania and Axiom Verge, and on…
And I’m going to be playing Breath of Wild until I’m 90 anyway, so screw it.
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Day 148: Switch Impressions
I love it. Adore it. It's where I do all my gaming now. I've settled into the groove of a casual, yet discerning, gamer over recent years, a groove in which I'm entirely comfortable. And the Switch fits this perfectly.
I know a fair amount about games, I stay au fait with the industry, and when I play I am alert and thoughtful and curious. But I do not play a lot. I'm not addicted. I don't game every second of the day, play right through the nights, wired on energy drinks and sugary snacks, have the constant bags under the eyes of a hardcore gamer. I don't consume games voraciously and unthinkingly.
I work a physically demanding job, with early starts and late finishes. I write this blog every day. At the moment I'm helping my joiner friend set up trade shows on my days away from the pub. I read books. I watch good films. I take photographs. I meditate, I try to bring myself into the present moment as much as possible, try to be mindful, to pay attention to my life as it is happening, even when my life is painful or boring or difficult.
I have plenty to occupy me, is what I'm saying, and my gaming habits have to fit around this. There was a time when I was depressed and out of work and my acne was really bad, and I would play World of Warcraft with my friend from uni for eight or so hours every day. More recently when I was drinking too much and smoking too much and not writing, I would use games like junk food, buying bright alluring new titles like a fat kid let loose in a snack shop. I'd binge on the openings to games as a way to distract me from my unhappiness and loneliness, play until that wore off - usually after the first hour or so - and then grow bored and stop playing and go back to being miserable until the next New Thing came along.
But these days I'm hiding from less, allowing myself less to use drugs or videogames or the like to self-medicate when I'm unhappy. I'm not attempting to game the pain away.
I still like games, I still like having them in my life, but they're like photography now - something I can do here and there, when there's time, and not get too obsessed over.
So the Switch is great for me. I've got only a handful of games - Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey, Hollow Knight that I've recently downloaded, Mario Kart for multiplayer - and when I get the chance I'll have a little play on one of them.
Breath of the Wild is great for days off, for running around a big open world fighting monsters and collecting apples and climbing mountains. It's like a warm bath. I completed it on Wii U, and now on Switch I'm picking through it slowly, finding it easy, poking about every nook and cranny, turning over every stone, letting my brain go slack while I glide off into the wilderness. It's fantastic.
Mario Odyssey is a decoction of fun, and scales beautifully. You can play for two minutes or two hours, and it's pretty much the same experience, just stretched. You run around in levels that are large playgrounds, and in every direction you find something bouncy or squishy or colourful or surprising with which to play. Maybe there's a bird flapping around with something shimmering in its wings, so you scramble up trees and leap at it to catch whatever it's got. Maybe there are girders hanging above empty space, so you jump across them as they crumble in order to reach the shiny reward at the end. Or you play maracas with Día de los Muertos skeletons in an Aztec desert. Or you twang up tightropes above a cartoon city. Or possess the body of a gloopy lava enemy and use its residual heat to warm a pot of stew for the race of animated forks who inhabit the level. I think it's important in life to keep an element of childlike wonder, to work to retain that simple joy we find from the world around us, from pulling and twisting and running and jumping, and Mario provides this better than any other game. Long may he reign.
Hollow Knight is exacting and frustrating and scary and glorious. It asks you to descend deeper and deeper into forgotten catacombs in which you become terrifyingly lost, and to push onwards until you map the space and overcome obstacles and emerge victorious. It is a difficult game, with bosses that force you up against your own failure, huge monsters with powerful attacks that crush you time and time again, with sometimes long, frustrating slogs from the checkpoint back to where you died, and it's like the game, in that Dark Souls tradition, is shoving your weakness and lack of skill in your face, saying, Look, you are not good enough - but saying it with zero attitude or malice, simply stating the fact, a Zen master hard and implacable, presenting you with the problem, offering you the chance to, in the parlance of the form, git gud. You watch your anger spewing out of you as that screaming demon smashes you apart for the fiftieth time, you watch the toddler within you wailing, sobbing that it's not fair, and you think... wait - it is fair. It just is what it is. This is the game. What do you want? Mummy to come and make it better? A bottle, something to slurp, a hand to pat your head and swaddle you in blankets. You're an adult now. No one is coming to save you. So breathe out that anger. Analyse what went wrong. Try again. Watch for the enemy's attack patterns. Let familiarity drain fear from the encounter. Practice, train, try, try, try. Git gud. And eventually you'll land that finishing blow, right into the boss's skull, and blood will rupture in torrents, and the corpse will crash to the ground, and you'll stand there tall and mighty, master of this arena, knowing it was all you. No one gave you this to pacify you. You earned it. You overcame. It is a good feeling.
Mario Kart I have not played much of, fifteen hours or so, but it is foolproof multiplayer fun. Staying in a hotel room with Steve the night before an early morning set-up, we lay on our beds clutching our respective Switches and spent a couple of hours with the game's battle mode, collecting coins and popping each other's balloons (they are not euphemisms!!!), and it was like being thirteen again and having a sleepover, and it was brilliant. Also I won four out of five tournaments, so therefore Mario Kart must be a Very Good Game.
It's mega late now, after a gruelling Saturday close at the pub, so I'll stop there, and tomorrow I'll discuss the Switch as a piece of hardware, and its strengths and weaknesses. Nice.
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Day 147: Lost in Hallownest
I’m lost in Hollow Knight. The obvious way forwards, what game designers call the critical path, has dwindled to nothing; I met a character who put a marker on my map, back in an early area, but nothing happens when I go there, I think I need to defeat some bosses or collect some doo-dads to activate whatever it is, and there’s nowhere else obvious to go next.
There’s a new area on the other side of the map, filled with exploding jellyfish and spasmodic electrical crackling charges, but I don’t seem to be able to get far into this zone without butting up against pulsing black fibre barriers blocking my way that clearly require an ability to traverse that I do not yet possess.
That sentence was weird. There are barriers in my way. I can tell I’ll need to acquire an ability to get past them.
But I’m not sure whether I get that ability from this new area, whether there’s just a room or a passageway I’m missing - I can’t even use the map for this section to check for potential routes, because the map vendor is blocked by one of the black barriers - or whether I need to go somewhere else entirely and then return here later.
I remember there being sections of ground that shook when I crossed them in other places in the game, and I recently learned how to smash through weak floors, so that’s something to try - but I’ve got no idea where those sections were, so short of retracing my steps through the entirety of the game I’m not sure what to do. I could look the solution up, but in a game about mapping the darkness and bringing order to chaos, it feels like reading walkthroughs on how to do this would turn the experience into drone work or something. I want to play a game. I don’t want to tick items off a checklist. I’m an active being, not a passive consumer.
So I guess I’ll head back into that labyrinthe and see what I can see. It feels like a lot of ground to cover - literally the ground, I’m literally going back over the cave floors looking for the bits that shake as I walk over them - but it’s not a huge world, and I’ve got plenty of skills now that make traversal fun - dashes and wallclimbs and whatnot - and I could do with farming the easier enemies for the money they drop to put towards buying upgrades for my character - so it’s not so bad.
And, hey, it beats putting that time towards learning a musical instrument or studying a foreign language or volunteering for a charity, right?
Getting lost in imaginary mazes while roleplaying as an insect knight wielding a pin sword fighting cartoon bug baddies: exactly how I envisaged I’d be spending my thirties.
So I guess I’ll head back into that labyrinthe and see what I can see. It feels like a lot of ground to cover - literally the ground, I’m literally going back over the cave floors looking for the bits that shake as I walk over them - but it’s not a huge world, and I’ve got plenty of skills now that make traversal fun - dashes and wallclimbs and whatnot - and I could do with farming the easier enemies for the money they drop to put towards buying upgrades for my character - so it’s not so bad.
And, hey, it beats putting that time towards learning a musical instrument or studying a foreign language or volunteering for a charity, right?
Getting lost in imaginary mazes while roleplaying as an insect knight wielding a pin sword fighting cartoon bug baddies: exactly how I envisaged I’d be spending my thirties.
In fairness, it pretty much is.
See you tomorrow.
See you tomorrow.
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