Ran into trouble in my Minish Cap Randomizer stream yesterday. I spent two hours wandering around Hyrule, looking for the one final item to round out the playthrough, and I never found it. In some ways, I folded; in other ways, I made a decision that would be best for the stream: I looked at the spoiler log. I don’t regret it, as the spot it told me wasn’t one I knew existed. Perhaps, it’s the spot I didn’t know existed, but either way, I didn’t check it on stream. I had thought I was going to finish the seed during the session, so I made the stream title and all the promotional content seem like I was going to. Then, dealing with the fact that I wasn’t going to finish it became something I had to do on the fly, so it was an interesting learning experience in that respect.
The other thing I learned streaming this week was that playing a new game, particularly a story-driven one, is not the best time to talk about things unrelated to the game itself. Games are designed to be fully immersive, which lends itself to discussion about the game that’s on screen, but trying to talk about something outside the game gets messy. I found myself getting pulled back into the game and away from the topic I was trying to cover, so I foresee myself staying away from the classic plug I’ve been working into my randomizers.
By the way, Hades is fantastic. It feels like a fresh take on Greek mythology, as well as a fresh take on the Roguelite genre. Supergiant Games haven’t done wrong by me yet, and Hades is an exemplar of their style. The art feels just a little crowded at first, but the high quality of just about every other aspect of the game will keep you in long enough for your eyes to adjust. At that point, you’re in for a world of fun (and failure, then more fun) as you slowly chip away at the mountain of available upgrades before you. I imagine I’ll keep the series going until I successfully escape the underworld, perhaps a couple of times. If you want to tune in, I’ll be continuing my first playthrough of that this coming Sunday at 4PM over on my Twitch Channel. I need fewer than twenty more followers to monetize my account, so your follow really would mean the world to me.
Here on WordPress, you’ll no doubt have noticed that I’ve enabled ads. I waited this long because they’re ugly, and they mess up my carefully designed layout, but they represent a source of income and give me a way to motivate people to support me on Patreon. You see, if I reach a particular threshold over there, I’ll remove the ads. Also, I’ve updated my patron reward tiers to have thematic names and actually represent rewards which I’m currently offering.
My “Initiate” short story plods along. Morgan’s brother is in town this week, and I failed to account for how that would impact my productivity. I’ve hit the point in its little plot where I’m going to insert a time skip, jumping to the part of our point of view character’s life where she’s a competent and effective member of her organization. I’ll have an understanding of what the intervening time looks like, and once I get a little way in I’ll know how long as well. This will mean new characters and places, so I’ll be calling upon my Cloaked Scholars to help me come up with some names (you can join them for $10 a month on Patreon!).
I titled this post “Continuing Our Ascent” because I’m still getting used to streaming on top of writing and restaurant work. I know I can do it—I feel I already am. We’re ascending, though, because I’m not doing it smoothly yet. I won’t lie: it’s nice to have a challenge before me. Come and watch how I rise to meet it!
Umbrella Terms 