Lith's Diary - May (Patreon)

Dear Diary,
Things are getting pretty hard, I guess. The quarantine is starting to wear on me, and the world is going crazy some more on top of that. I've mostly been hiding from it all, but it's tough not to be affected. I hope you're holding up okay. We have to take care of ourselves and keep our spirits up if we're gonna get through this and thrive on the other side.

Things have been kinda tough for me besides all that, but it might be that the big separation is kinda feeding into it. I've had trouble focusing or... I don't know. Anytime I run into a problem, I tend to kinda feel like it's just... too much, and it's really hard to keep going. But... I'm still going, even if it's really slowly, in little fits and starts. Just keep doing whatever we can, right?

I did have some followup notes from checking over my last diary. I think I'm... still a little shaken up over my friend. That and a few other things have left me kinda struggling to have any kind of confidence in myself, to believe that I can make good choices. But you can't run from making choices forever, at some point you have to choose even if it's bad.

But enough grousing. I also had some followup notes about Forager, the game I ranted about a lot last time. The end game was actually fairly fun, but weird. Basically, one of the most precious resources from the early game becomes something you just churn out loads of to max out your health bar... and then sacrifice your health bar to a demon altar for loot, over and over. And one of the main things you're looking to get is these lil droids that float around following you, harvesting stuff and shooting at any enemies that come in range. They're fairly handy, but it's when you collect like thirty of them that it starts getting pretty OP and any resources or enemies you go near just evaporate.

And what do you need that kind of power for? Well, the big endgame thing is basically to go play a roguelike. You jump through a portal and kill everything in a level to go to the next, on and on and on until you can't kill all of them in a level's time limit, and at some point "all of them" is literally dozens of bosses, which are spouting out hordes of underlings constantly, so it becomes literally a full-on war between you and your army of droids vs. an army of bosses with endlessly replenishing armies of lil dudes. So... it does get pretty epic and intense!

I guess the main complaints I had for the endgame was, first, that there didn't seem to be any actual end goal or finishing point. It was more like an MMO where you level through all the main game, then you can just kinda keep grinding for incremental power gains in the endgame just about forever. Kinda weird, but it's true it has multiplayer I guess. The other issue I had with the game is: the drones used to be these tiny white pods. I've seen screenshots, if you had thirty of those it would be kind of a cloud around you but it was manageable.

But... at some point they replaced the tiny white pods with custom animated creatures and such for all the game's supporters. Which means they're all moving, colorful, and like five to ten times the size. So when you have thirty of those... it's basically a solid carpet of writhing colors completely blocking out everything else on your screen. I have to move around just to get an idea of what's under them by peeking through the gaps as they shift about. I could swear I saw an option to turn off the custom drones at some point, but I never found it once I actually had drones, so... yeah. That was a bit frustrating. Overall though, still a very fun game! I'd highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys the crafty progression game style, whether on your own or with friends.

Other than that... I didn't really have any games I got super big into this month, so much as I tried a little bit of a ton of different games. I've had a little of that feeling of "why do I game, anyway?" again lately, which tells me I need another one of those really great, addictive games. It's kinda frustrating-- I like to pick up lots of different games and see what everyone's trying, how design is shifting, but it's so hard to get into new games properly, and after starting a few new games it's harder to get excited for the next one, to convince yourself that this one will really be fun. To give it a proper chance and really get deep into the meat of the game before just moving on... Gaming was more magical when there were so few of them around, I guess. Now, playing a game is so involved that it's hard to keep putting in that much commitment each time...

I guess that's part of why I've ended up watching shows more. Or at least, leaving them on while I'm doing other stuff. I finally checked out what the big deal was with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Hunter X Hunter, or at least what was available on Netflix. JoJo certainly lived up to its title many times over, and overall was... fun, in a very silly, ridiculous way? It reminds me a little of Metal Gear Solid just with how intensely it takes itself seriously while also being over the top nonsense. And Hunter... I think maybe I'm coming to it too late, because a lot of it just felt... suuuper cliched, but I guess the first episode was the worst for that. I'd tried it once before and gave up after the first episode, but it does gradually come into its own odd identity after that. Overall, it still didn't feel very special in the end, but apparently the Netflix series cuts off before it really "gets good" from what I've heard from others. But that's after I think four seasons, so... that's a tough sell!

But you know, with how I've been feeling lately, I've come to realize that maybe I'm just not seeing the good in things enough. Some advice I heard a bit ago that stuck with me is to learn to have more "gratitude" for all the good in your life. We tend to turn that word into something almost insulting-- oh, you aren't grateful for all the good this person does for you, shame shame! Or something like that. But it's not about obligation or paying respect, it's just... being happy that things are how they are. It's kinda related to the idea of setting your standards a little lower... though that also tends to have negative connotations when we talk about it.

It's a hard concept to talk about! But maybe part of that is that our culture tends toward a certain amount of... selfishness and constant desire for new, better things that runs counter to these idea. I guess you could say that the idea of consumerism inherently requires you to be unhappy with your current state... pretty much all the time. But that's... awful, isn't it? When we're healthy, we aren't happy for it, we only notice when we get sick and get miserable because of it. We don't tend to take time to appreciate all the wonderful things in our lives, all the ways that we live in a better world than those that struggled to bring us here, stretching all the way back to prehistory. That's not part of how we usually think. But... I want to fight that. I want to learn to better appreciate what I have, and what is. I do want to keep my desire to improve, but also, protecting the things that are already good should feel rewarding to me, I think. I'm going to have to think on this a lot, and maybe look around for more angles on the idea.

In times like this, I think that's especially important. We need more happiness, more satisfaction, more contentment. I hope you can find some of that in your own life, Diary. There are probably hundreds of things you have going for you that others could only wish for... and plenty that I might just be jealous of myself. So... try not to take them for granted? I'll be trying to do the same.

I hope you know by now that I do appreciate you, at least. On this long road, you've helped so much, in so many ways, I... It's humbling. And a little embarrassing that you seem to think I'm worth all this effort. Thank you so much for all your help, and your guidance, and your patience, and your support. I couldn't have gotten here without you. And if nothing else, I'm definitely grateful that we've made it here, together.

Take care, and stay safe.
-Lith