A Punchup at a Wedding (Day 178)

It seems like I'm playing a new game just about every day lately. My friend and I were discussing what other co-op games we might consider playing and we stumbled onto the idea of playing a free MMO. I don't know a lot about what's available but I had heard a little about Rift, which is evidently completely free to play. It seems very polished compared to other games I've tried so I figured--why not? There's no harm in trying it.

I'm definitely not what'd you call an MMO aficionado. I have very little experience with what's out there. I've played World of Warcraft pretty extensively, but I've only spent maybe an hour or two on any other game in the genre. I recall playing Dungeons & Dragons Online very briefly, as well as Runes of Magic and Ragnarok Online many years ago. I didn't spend very much time on any of these for various reasons. The first two seemed to lack polish, and Ragnarok Online seemed needlessly grindy and really dated, despite a really cute art style. I'm sure there are some more good MMOs out there that I haven't tried yet. I've heard somewhat decent things about Tera, The Old Republic, and Guild Wars 2. It's possible I'll try those at some point, but considering how time consuming MMOs tend to be, I'm not sure it'll be any time soon.

My initial impressions of Rift are pretty positive. It's fairly pretty compared to other MMOs I've played. As a WoW player, there's nothing about the game that seems utterly foreign to me. The Soul Trees available to each class are very reminiscent of the old talent trees in WoW before they were revamped. General mechanics and spells seem analogous to spells in WoW, although it seems you're generally rewarded with far more skills in early levels comparatively. As a level 16 Cleric, I already have access to something like 8 different healing spells and the Soul Tree seems to indicate many more are on their way. Whether or not some of the spells I have now will become obsolete as I acquire more powerful spells remains to be seen.

The rhythm of questing seems very familiar--derivative but polished. The main wrench that Rift throws into the mix is its namesake. Rifts will open up in the world as you are questing. You can team up with other players in the area to battle the demons that pour out of these rifts and then close the portal to prevent more from getting out. For completing these events you will be rewarded with a special form of currency that can be used to purchase gear from planar merchants. Admittedly, I don't know a lot about this yet.

One strength of newer MMOs compared to WoW lies in character customization. That game's character creation system is painfully dated. In Rift, you have a very high degree of control over what your character looks like, down to hair style, hair color, makeup, face shape, skin color, and height. I really appreciate being able to tailor my character specifically to my preferences. The customization doesn't stop at the aesthetic, either. Each base class (of which there are four) has access to a number of Soul Trees. You are allowed to select three of them and distribute points between them as you wish. This leads to a huge number of possible class combinations. It's hard to say how well balanced these different options are.

So far I'm definitely enjoying it. I haven't been able to participate in any major group encounters other than world events. It looks like I'll be able to start queuing up for dungeons once I hit level 18--but I'm not sure I'll jump into that right away.

Giants (Day 177)

I spent some time yesterday on two games that are in my massive backlog--and neither one of them are games I've discussed much on this blog. No, I didn't decide to look into classic Quintet action RPGs as I was considering doing, but I did briefly play Final Fantasy X, despite some technical difficulties with getting my disc to work with the emulator. I wouldn't use an emulator at all, but my PS2 has been busted for quite some time and I'm not in a position to buy a new one anytime soon.

Most of the time I spent on FFX yesterday was on testing to make sure it ran properly. I experimented with several different configurations until I settled on something that seemed to run efficiently. It can be a little finicky because I'm running on integrated graphics due to my video card exploding awhile back. I did eventually settle on a good setup. The only issue seems to be with spells that cause a significant amount of blur like Demi--they slow my framerate pretty significantly.

I've played the game before but never made a lot of progress. As I've mentioned previously on this blog, I didn't own a PS2 when the game originally came out--and just never went back to it for whatever reason. I knew a lot about it from other people, including a lot of major spoilers, although no meaningful context on those spoilers. I've only played the game for maybe an hour so far, but I'm still struck all these years later by how goofy Tidus' clothes are. The soundtrack is solid so far, but I expected as much from a Square title. I seem to recall Masashi Hamauzu did part of the soundtrack--and I'm quite fond of his work for Final Fantasy XIII. 

The other game I played yesterday was Vagrant Story, on which I spent a considerably greater amount of time. I haven't played this game since I bought it on eBay maybe 10 years ago. I really enjoyed it until it became incredibly difficult and I found myself unable to continue. Years later, I realize that I was having difficulty due to not understanding some crucial game mechanics. The game is essentially a dungeon crawler with a hybrid of real time and turn-based combat. It has all the exploration and problem solving of an adventure game, but with equipment, levels, and a combo system that requires you to time button presses with your weapon connecting with your opponent.

Each different type of weapon in the game behaves differently as far as how your combos must be timed. Only with a significant amount of trial and error can you become accustomed to the specific timing required for each strike. If your timing is good, you can keep combos going theoretically forever. However, there is a limiter in place for this kind of behavior. Each attack generates a certain amount of Risk. As you gain Risk, your accuracy and defense decrease--although it does increase your crit chance and healing. I haven't been able to find any confirmation on this, but it looks like it applies a flat increase to your damage as well.

The gameplay is fun and the graphics are solid, although dated. It's a PS1 game, after all--and the early days of polygonal graphics were a bit rough. It looks better than Final Fantasy VII to be sure, though. What I haven't mentioned so far is the plot. Although I don't know a whole lot about it just yet, I can say that the dialogue is exceptionally well-written. It seems as if it's meant to evoke Shakespeare and pops up in iconic speech bubbles that don't look like any other game I can think of.

Sprout and the Bean (Day 176)

I've been playing Hearthstone a lot lately and I can safely say that I really enjoy it. I'm still a relative neophyte, but I already have some gripes with game balance--or at least some of Blizzard's design decisions. I'm very much accustomed to Magic: the Gathering which I feel is a spectacularly balanced game (bar some notable exceptions) and Hearthstone is definitely not quite there yet.

I'm not in the upper echelons of the rankings just yet (and let's be honest, I probably never will be) but I've noticed that Hunter in particular is vastly overplayed. It seems to have easy access to a lot of very powerful, aggressively costed cards like Scavenging Hyena and Starving Buzzard. Its Hero Power, while very simple, is extremely useful in whittling down the enemy hero's health over the course of a match. Unless I have access to a lot of removal, it's easy to get overwhelmed by a Hunter's beast cards.

Priest and Druid are probably my favorite classes so far. Priest has a ton of removal and defensive utility while still having access to direct damage like Mind Blast and Holy Nova. Coincidentally, I was a pretty big fan of the class in WoW. I like Druid because I can put together decks quite reminiscent of Elf Overrun decks from MTG. Savage Roar is a nice 3 cost card that gives everyone on my side +2 Attack, including my hero. In addition to cards like the 1 cost Claw (which buffs up my Hero's Armor and Attack), I can dump down a lot of damage in a single turn.

One mechanic I'm not so sure about is Taunt. Its most obvious analogue in Magic is Defender, but they're actually quite different. Defender cards in Magic are typically very aggressively costed cards with high power and toughness--but unfortunately they can only block. Taunt cards in Hearthstone must block. The attacker must target an eligible Taunt card if able. Other cards cannot block at all. The problem is that these Taunt cards are costed as if they were Defender, without the normal disadvantages associated. This makes it difficult to run very aggressive creature (minion) decks because you're stonewalled by powerful and common Taunt cards like Senjin Shieldmasta and Booty Bay Bodyguard.

My opinion on the game may change as I progress through the ranks and acquire rarer cards to add to my arsenal. The game's definitely fun, but some classes certainly seem stronger than others. Hunter and Paladin seem quite strong, while Shaman might be too weak. I say this with relatively limited information on the subject, however. I will continue to experiment and see what I can figure out.

With the Tides in Hindsight (Day 175)

Ghostly wisps of steam were still rising from his exposed ruddy flesh as the man once more examined himself in the bathroom mirror. His dripping hair was plastered to his scalp. He could feel the tail end of those damp strands tickling his back. He definitely needed to get a haircut. As soon as he figured out how to get back home that's the first thing he would do. He'd go get a haircut and he would shave. He felt uncomfortable with the man looking back at him in the mirror with the soaked beard and ruddy complexion.

He quickly dried off with the clean towels seemingly provided just for him. Despite frequently sporting relatively long hair, he'd never been much for blow dryers. He vigorously applied the towel to his hair, struggling to wring all of the water out. This was always the most time consuming part of his day. He had always been able to get ready a lot faster when his hair had been shorter. Yeah. He was definitely going to get a haircut.

A cursory inspection revealed nothing in the way of a brush or comb so he did his best to smooth out his hair with his hands. He wasn't altogether too concerned about it. His hair had a way of settling into place regardless of how he chose to interact with it. As he shrugged his shoulders at no one in particular, the man become uncomfortably aware of the chill in the room. The shower's heat had begun to dissipate. He quickly dressed himself in his clothes. They were still pretty dirty, but he felt uncomfortable with the idea of ransacking this pristine house for something new to wear.

After pulling on his socks and shoes, the man made his way into the dining room, through the kitchen, and back into the living room, where he'd left the laptop and phone laying on a coffee table. A pristine LCD TV was mounted on the wall opposite a plush couch. Earlier he had turned it on but it seemed not to be receiving any kind of signal. He'd found no home phones either, although he wasn't surprised. It seemed uncommon these days to use anything else but a cell phone, and whoever had lived there probably had kept them on their persons.

He settled down onto the couch and let out a long, slow breath. It was comfortable, although he was still cold. Everything in the house seemed to be working, but there was no heat. Maybe it had been turned off in an effort to save energy while its inhabitants were absent. He wasn't sure. He decided not to investigate further and instead set his thoughts to examining the phone that was now glowing with renewed life.

The phone's background was a plain single color--black. Most people with smartphones tended to set some kind of background image, but not this particular phone owner. There were a lot of different icons on the phone corresponding to various different applications and games. He wasn't concerned with that, though. He examined the corner of the screen for the telltale symbol that indicated the phone was receiving a signal. "No Service," it said. Well. That was that.

He decided to dial 911. He'd heard that it was possible to do so even when a phone lacked service, in case of emergencies. He fumbled with the touchscreen while punching the numbers in and held the unfamiliar phone up to his ear after pressing "Send." There was nothing. No sound. No indication that the call had failed or succeeded. He tried a few more times to no avail. Still nothing.

He instead turned his attention to the laptop. If everything else was working in this house, then perhaps they had a working internet connection? It was no use, though. The laptop had died, ostensibly while charging the phone. He let out an exasperated sigh. What was he going to do? He dreaded the thought of getting out on the road again. The neighborhood he'd wandered into was a sparsely populated one. There was another house significantly further down the road. He supposed he'd have to keep looking.

Before resigning himself to that fate, the man decided to examine the phone some more. He pored over the phone's settings but could not find a way to get it working again. He was able to figure out that the phone had been owned by a guy named Todd. There were hundreds of pictures and recorded voicemails on the phone. He found his voyeuristic tendencies suddenly getting the better of him as he looked through the stranger's private data.

Early Morning Ambulance (Day 174)

I'm getting into one of those moods again. My co-op partner and I are progressing through a second playthrough of Seiken Densetsu 3 with an all new party. We've even talked about a possible third playthrough sometime in the future, though we'll probably wait quite awhile before we attempt to do that. It's given me cravings for other action RPGs though, and not a lot of those early ones are co-op. I'm fine with playing single player games, of course--it's what I'm used to.

I recall playing Terranigma many years ago and liking it a lot. Unfortunately, I never finished it due to a save data fiasco, but I'd definitely be interested in picking it up again. I did a little research and found that it was developed by Quintet, who also helmed such titles as ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Illusion of Gaia. There are all games I've played very briefly in the past--but now I'm flirting with the idea of playing them for real. They also developed one of PlayStation's earliest polygonal RPGs, Granstream Saga. It's not exactly critically acclaimed, but I think it might be interesting to try for the historical perspective.

On the other hand, playing Tales of Destiny recently (despite the netplay headaches) has put the thought of playing through more Tales games in my mind. I finished the PlayStation version of Tales of Phantasia maybe a year ago and actually liked it quite a bit. I'd rank it up there with Tales of Symphonia as one of my favorites in the series--although I've only played a few. ToD doesn't seem quite as good, but it's certainly playable and the combat is as fun as ever, especially in co-op. If we could work something out where we played the game locally, I might actually have the motivation to finish it. If that happens, I'd then move on to Tales of Eternia. Beyond that I'm not sure, since Tales of Destiny II was never localized and I've already finished Symphonia and Abyss. I'd like to play Tales of Vesperia, but it's tough to find. I'm suddenly recalling that I own Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, which seemed sort of forgettable but might be worth playing co-op.

Aside from all that, I'm still progressing through Gungnir at a glacial pace. It's a great game, but it's actually pretty tough. I've had to restart missions several times--and considering how slow paced the game is, that means I spend a great deal of time not doing much of anything as far as progression goes. I'll be happy once some of my characters get strong enough to decimate my opponents because right now everyone feels relatively weak. I'm positive it will pick up, though. There's not a single Dept. Heaven game I've played that I haven't enjoyed. Gungnir reminds me most of Yggdra Union. The protagonist Milanor seems a lot like Giulio, both of which are bandits with wild blonde hair.

Behind Curtains Closing (Day 173)

So, we have started an experiment with netplay via PlayStation emulation and our results have been pretty spotty. Somehow we have managed to log around 6 hours of playtime on Tales of Destiny. When the multiplayer works, the combat is quite fun! I've been controlling Mary and my co-op partner Stahn. Battles seem to go by a lot faster when you don't have to rely on the questionable AI. Getting the netplay to work at all was quite the ordeal, though.

After fiddling with firewalls, port forwarding, synchronization of emulation settings, and a lot of trial and error, we finally got the game running with both of us in the game. In the case of Tales of Destiny, you are restricted to one party member for the first 45 minutes to an hour or so. We were both present in the game and I was watching my co-op partner control the protagonist, Stahn. It seemed like all was well. After a certain period of time, he obtained his first party members. Garr and the girl seemed like they were probably temporary characters--but we were unable to figure out any way to assign control of them to a second player. I did some research and it turned out that you had to equip an accessory (Channeling Ring) to assign control to a different player at all.

We thought this was a little strange, but I was completely fine with waiting until we found it. By the time we found it, we'd acquired what is ostensibly a permanent party member in Mary. She's a melee fighter much like Stahn himself. When we finally found the ring we equipped it to Mary. Unfortunately, once we got into combat, Mary just stood there and did nothing. None of my buttons did a thing. We'd already been playing for some time and despite quite a bit of experimentation we couldn't figure out how to get it to work--so we retired for the night.

The next day we decided to try it again. We tried a number of things until I alt+tabbed out of the window for something unrelated. After returning to the window I found that I then had control. We tested this a few times and found that this allowed me to assume control every single time--for reasons that are completely unknown to me. After going through so much to get this game to work at all, we were excited to finally both have control of characters in combat. For quite awhile, everything progressed without incident. I feel like the game's a lot more fun when you're playing it mutiplayer, actually.

After awhile, we started running into more issues. Every so often the music would start skipping and we would get desynced. What this means is that despite the netplay plugin attempting to keep us connecting, we began to run two individual versions of the game simultaneously. I would be given complete control and so would he--in completely separate instances. This seemed to happen completely at random. It could happen every ten minutes or every two hours. It was annoying to say the least. Compounding the annoyance is the fact that once my co-op partner finally gets to a save point, he has to send me his memory card data to sync up our games again.

I would like to keep playing because it is legitimately fun while it's working correctly, but I'm not entirely sure it's worth the trouble. There are a few more things I'd like to try, of course. We haven't experimented with save states and all. Initially we thought they might be completely disabled in netplay, but I'm not so sure. Save states were very useful in ZSNES for syncing back up after something caused us to desync--but in that case it happened much less frequently.

Tiger Girl (Day 172)

The bearded man found himself once again examining his reflection in a dusty mirror. His features had somehow hardened since the last time he had seen them in that abandoned cabin in the woods. He had a few scrapes from the tightly tangled branches and much to his chagrin he seemed to breaking out. His face was flushed and he could just make out a series of red pockmarks. He supposed it was a ridiculous thing to worry about considering the circumstances--but he couldn't shake the feeling. He felt filthy. His longish dark hair resembled a bird's nest and was stiff to the touch.

He glanced down at the porcelain bowl set into the wooden surface of the bathroom sink. Unlike the abandoned house he'd just left, everything here seemed to be in relatively good condition. A tube of toothpaste laid to the side of the sink, almost perfectly perpendicular to its squarish frame. A container of toothbrushes rested above it, each brush with not a bristle out of place. This bathroom had been taken care of meticulously and ostensibly had been used recently. But there was no one here. There had been no one anywhere.

An experimental twist of the faucet's knob revealed that the house still had running water. He wasn't surprised. It seemed as if the house had been inhabited only days before. Maybe even more recently than that. It was anyone's guess what had happened to them. He didn't want to think about it. He appraised his grimy reflection once more. He should take a shower. Then he would set out again and maybe he would find someone. Someone who could tell him how to get home--and maybe have some insight on how he had gotten there in the first place.

The shower took up the center of the bathroom, dividing the toilet and sink from what looked like a completely different room with a dresser, closet, and a small desk. The bearded man assumed the two rooms had once been separate but he couldn't be sure. Someone had probably gotten ready for work in this room every morning. Several clean towels were folded over a bar jutting out of the side of the structure enclosing the shower. An empty hamper was placed neatly in a corner of the room. If it had been in his bathroom it would be piled high with dirty clothes and towels. Whoever had lived here was certainly a tidier person that he was. He grimaced as he ran his fingers through his filthy hair. He was stalling; he needed to shower.

Shivering in the room's surprising chill, the man began to peel off his dusty clothes. He realized he probably should have turned on the shower first to get the water hot so he did so. It was one of those showers that had  single lever to control the temperature. It wasn't what he was used to but he was sure he could figure it out with a little experimentation. He confirmed that the water was indeed getting warmer and resumed disrobing. He piled his clothes unceremoniously into the hamper and stepped into the shower, savoring the feel of the hot water washing over him.

Truth be told, the water was a little too hot, but he did not move the lever. The contrast of the hot water on his cold flesh was excruciating but exquisite. Normally the temperature would be far too much to be comfortable, but he wanted to savor it for now, let it sink into his flesh. He wanted the water to melt away the cold from his body and take him over. He let his mind blank as steam rose from his flesh. He began to lose track of time and his mind wandered. He'd brought the laptop and the phone with him from the other house. It had probably charged enough to be used by now. Maybe it would have service. It seemed unlikely but nothing seemed to make sense lately.

His thoughts drifted to her again. He imagined her slender arms encircling him at the waist, her damp hair caressing his shoulder. He was hot now, almost comfortably so--but it was not the warmth he craved. He felt empty. Even though his entire body was burning up, he still could not shake the cold that had settled into his heart.

Adjust (Day 171)

It's cold. Very cold. It's cold enough that I really just want to curl up in bed and go to sleep early. Normally I'd want to get up and do things, but under the circumstances I'd rather just lie in bed wrapped in blankets. I've spent most of today so far watching the EU LCS. I think my favorite game of the day was Roccat vs Gambit. Roccat was previously known as KMT, an all-Polish team that has apparently been around for years. They almost didn't make it into the LCS at all, but after handily disposing of Ninjas in Pyjamas in a 3-0 sweep during the promotion tournament, they secured their spot.

With the second week of the EU LCS concluding today, Roccat sits at a respectable 5-1 score--unexpected to say the least. This a completely new team to the LCS and they're doing great. Today they took out the powerhouse Gambit Gaming and they deserve a lot of praise for that. However, I feel like Gambit's picks were a little suspect. Edward has always been one for strange support picks, especially lately, but he's evidently taken a liking to support Kennen. It works when he gets ahead and can buy items, but when he gets put behind like in the game against Roccat. . .not so much.

Another odd choice from Gambit was Shen in the jungle. It actually ended up working a lot better than I expected, but when he was called upon to defend against split pushes, he just did not have the items. Diamondprox rushed a Wriggle's Lantern ostensibly because he was planning on spending a lot of time farming the jungle and Shen benefits from the stats, but it just did not work out. It ended up being a pretty colossal waste of gold that delayed his tank items significantly. Although he was able to pick up a few early kills and assists, he just wasn't the teamfight force that a Shen often is.

Edward's Kennen didn't take off like he had in previous games either. The last time he picked it, he was able to solo the opponent's AD carry. Against Roccat he was little more than a glorified stunbot, a role more effectively carried out by Annie. What's strange is that Gambit left Thesh open. It was available for them to pick but they let Vander have it--and he did fantastic work. Vander landed hook after hook on poor Edward and put him terribly far behind.

Alex Ich farmed his heart out on Orianna but was not able to compete with Overpow's Kayle, who picked up tons of kills and started three shotting the opposition. I've seen Kayle picked intermittently in the LCS but no one seems to dominate quite like Overpow. I'd say it's his signature champion but after seeing such diverse picks as Pantheon and Mordekaiser, who can be sure? He seems to be able to deliver a satisfying performance on just about any champion. I'm definitely looking forward to more from Roccat this season.

The Watcher (Day 170)

I'm not sure Baldur's Gate makes for the most compelling multiplayer experience. Even though I love the game, I have to admit the gameplay is really dated and frustrating--especially early on. You'll sit there and watch as your pixelated characters swipe their weapons futilely at hobgoblins, missing something like 50% of the time. You have little influence on whether or not combat is successful. You may be taken out in one shot or you might kill your opponents on the first hit. It's not really up to you at that point. Most RPGs rely on RNG to a certain extent but it's especially frustrating at level 1 in Baldur's Gate.

Still, I think if I can convince my co-op partner to stick it out, he might start to actually enjoy it. I'm in favor of restricting our party size so that we gain levels more quickly, although it might be a good idea to temporarily recruit Xzar and Montaron to assist in taking down the mage at the entrance of the Friendly Arm. Once we can start legitimately buying supplies and gaining levels, I think the game will pick up steam. A sizable percentage of the experience for me is in the lore and the dialogue--and I fear he might be skimming over that a bit too much. We'll see what happens, though.

If anything, maybe we'll just play it every now and then, making progress slowly. I'm in favor of that since I played through the game somewhat recently. I don't mind taking it slow this time. Truth be told, I'd like to resume our playthrough of Final Fantasy VI, but I'm unsure whether or not he'd like to continue. Our options for co-op games are a tad limited at the moment. We played a little bit of Kirby Super Star, an old favorite of mine. It's a great game, but there's only so much play time you can get out of it. We only played for maybe an hour and a half and managed to complete three or four of the game modes.

We also looked into Secret of Evermore, for which there exists a 2 player hack. It seemed to be working for him, but I couldn't get it to work at all. It's strange, because we were using the exact same version of the ROM and the exact same version of the emulator--but it worked for him and not me. Irritating, to say the least. I'd really like to play that game for the historical perspective if nothing else. I might do it on my own at some point, but. . .who knows when that might happen.

I think we're going to try out netplay on a PlayStation emulator pretty soon. I don't have high hopes but I definitely don't mind giving it a try.

Super Fluke (Day 169)

I can't quite recall the final play time logged for Seiken Densetsu 3, but we did vanquish the final boss late last night after a short session. It was somewhere around 18 hours, but I don't think we made it to 20. I wish Secret of Mana kept track of the number of hours played so I could compare the two, but if I had to guess I'd say maybe it was a little longer. Still, as I have discussed at length already on this blog, SD3 is a pretty good game and the final battle was nice.

Both SoM and SD3 have above average soundtracks composed by Hiroki Kikuta. The final battle theme from SD3 in particular was really good, but there were plenty of memorable themes that contrast nicely with other popular soundtracks of the time. Uematsu's Final Fantasy themes are more immediately listenable and  Yasunori Mitsuda's Chrono Trigger tracks have a nice mystical quality. Kikuta's best work is heavy on percussion and is frequently tribal and energetic. He sometimes fails to hit the mark on the more peaceful compositions, though.

I think we're definitely going to play it again, but who knows when. Carlie/Lise/Angela (the charaters we didn't pick) is actually sounding like a nice composition for our next playthrough. The play style is almost exactly the opposite in that it is completely centered around spellcasting as opposed to melee combat. This probably happen until we've played a few other games. For the past few weeks we've been playing something just about every night after 9 o'clock or so--and that has remained fairly consistent. Who knows how long we'll keep it up. I'm unemployed and saddled with a ridiculous amount of free time, so I'm definitely game for the time being.

We started up Final Fantasy VI last night/this morning at my suggestion. After some deliberation on my part, I decided we should play the original American release. It's the version I'm most familiar with and I figured it would be best for him to play it first. I think I'd still like to try the more literal fan translation of the game at some point, but I'll tackle that on my own. There are also some hacks out there that increase the difficulty of the game that I'd be interested in trying. I'll definitely write about that when it happens.

It got pretty late, so we didn't make it terribly far. We escaped the caves of Narshe with Terra and Locke and made our way to Figaro Castle. After Kefka dropped in and ruined everyone's fun, the party (with Edgar in tow) made their way to the cave south of the castle astride some chocobos. It's interesting to observe my co-op partner's impression to one of my favorite video games of all time--while he's playing it for the first time ever. I'm actually a little concerned he won't like it since he's never been a huge turn-based RPG guy. He did like Chrono Trigger, but I feel like that's a very accessible RPG that has aged beautifully. It's hard for me to say the same about FFVI even if I still love it.

It's about 9:30 AM right now and I'm still up--because my sleep schedule is really bizarre at the moment. Honestly, it's been like this for awhile. I've been making sure to get up before 9 PM every night but beyond that I've been waking up at really random times. Sometimes I'll wake up right at 9 PM after having only slept three or four hours--and then I'll go back to sleep at around 3 or 4 AM.

I remembered earlier today that Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard's new digital card game went into open beta recently. I decided to download it and give it a try. I'm enjoying it so far, but I'll probably talk more about that later.

High Tension Wire (Day 168)

We are closing in on the finale of Seiken Densetsu 3 after having just acquired our final class promotions. Although each character's ultimate class requires you to find specific items with random drop rates, we didn't have to spend too much time farming to get the ones we needed. The class promotion becomes available at level 38 and none of our characters were above 40 by the time we had everyone promoted. We're currently navigating the labyrinthine passageways of Dragon's Hole. After we fought a boss and subsequently got lost, we decided to call it a night, but we may well finish it tonight.

Even though I've acknowledged already that SD3 is flawed, I do like it a lot and have already had some thoughts about what character composition I'd try if I were to play it again. We've logged about 16 hours in the game and we're almost done so I'd guess the game's not too much longer than 20 hours. It wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to play it over again--perhaps over a short break. One notable flaw of our current team composition is the lack of consistent area healing or damage. We have Techs that hit everything on screen but you have to land quite a few attacks to charge up your meter first. We don't have anything on demand. As for area healing, we only have access to Poto Oils which we can only carry 9 of at any given time. They're good, but something tells me Carlie's healing would be a lot better.

We've decided that if we did play it again we'd definitely have Lise and Carlie in the party. Lise would play the role of a melee support who provided buffs whereas Carlie would obviously be the healer--although we'd make her a Necromancer for her strong Black Curse spell, an invaluable debuff against bosses. If we were to fill out the remaining slot with the other character we haven't used, we'd have to go with Angela. However, that would mean we wouldn't have a melee hard-hitter in the team. It might make more sense to go with Duran instead, but with a different class this time. There'd be no need to go Lord because Carlie already has area healing, so Swordsmaster is a pretty attractive option, since he has access to most of the elemental saber spells.

It's cool to think about, but there's a good chance we're not going to start replaying it right away. After playing SoM and SD3 back to back I know that I'm a bit burned out on the format. I'd like to play something in a slightly different genre or maybe another action RPG that doesn't involve pausing combat in any way. I took a look at Hammerwatch earlier today and man does it look fun. The graphics are primitive, of course, but I think they're well presented and charming. It looks like a blast. If I ever find myself with a few extra dollars I think I'll probably pick it up--and try to convince my friend to do so as well.

I did some investigation into the viability of online multiplayer with PS1 emulation, and it didn't look great. It's possible, but apparently it can be quite buggy and unreliable. Desync is evidently a huge problem. I was looking forward to playing something like Tales of Destiny or Legend of Mana co-op, but it looks like it might not necessarily be feasible unless I was in the same room with someone--and I'm not super partial to leaving the house these days. 

Coin Song (Day 167)

I've been pondering what co-op game I should play with my friend after we finish Seiken Densetsu 3. It would be nice to play something I've never played/finished before, but the amount of co-op RPGs available is shockingly limited, especially if we're being restricted to games I have not played.

A few titles have sprung to mind, but I'm not sure about their viability. There's Tales of Phantasia on SNES, for which a fan translation exists--but I've already played the superior PS1 version. I'm not sure I like the idea of downgrading, and it's quite a long game too. Tales of Destiny is an option as well, but it's a PS1 game. I have no clue how viable online multiplayer is for PS1 emulators and I've never tried it. That might be a decent option if it works well, because I'd definitely like to finish that game and it's unlikely I'll have the motivation to do so alone. 

I've also looked into some of the other games in the Mana series and it looks like Legend of Mana might be the only other one worth playing. Like Tales of Destiny, it's a PS1 game. Once we've investigated the viability of PS1 multiplayer, that's a definite option. 

If we choose not to restrict ourselves to games I haven't finished, we have a lot more options open to us. All of the SNES Final Fantasy games have a little known multi-player component in that characters can be assigned to different characters in combat. I certainly wouldn't mind replaying any of those games since they're some of my favorite games of all time. I wonder, though, would it be worth trying out the RPGOne fan translation of Final Fantasy VI? I've never played through it. I think it would be interesting to play through a more literal translation of the game--though it feels wrong to call Sabin Mash or Terra Tina. I'm curious what my co-op partner would prefer, as he's never played the game at all.

Another option on that front would be the legendary Baldur's Gate, which I have discussed exhaustively on this blog before. Having played it fairly recently, I'm not sure how eager I would be to replay again so soon--but who am I kidding, I'd love to do that. I think we'd probably create two characters initially and then recruit party members as normal. Maybe we could track down the Enhanced Edition? I haven't played that version, and I heard a few things were added to it. That's definitely something else to consider.

Sacred 2 is another option in the action RPG vein of Path of Exile and Titan Quest, but I'm not so sure about it after playing it for a few minutes. It seemed somewhat decent, but forgettable. I'd be wiling to give it a shot if he wanted to, but it's low priority on my list for now. 

Honestly, I'm a little curious as to why more RPGs like Secret of Mana haven't popped up over the years. It's a pretty simple idea, but maybe it's tough to execute. It would explain why many of the recent Mana games have not been at all successful and why there are so few games in the genre. 

A Better Place (Day 166)

We acquired our first round of class changes in Seiken Densetsu 3 last night. I think we're about five or six hours in, maybe level 20 or so. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but we did restart the game with a different character comp. We started out with Angela/Hawk/Lise but we decided we weren't happy with how often we had to pause the gameplay to cast Angela's spells. We started over with Duran/Hawk/Kevin, a full melee composition. Duran and Kevin both have healing spells available to them, while Hawk has access to elemental jutsus if we ever need to expoit a specific weakness.

We decided to promote Duran and Kevin to their light classes (Knight and Monk), while promoting Hawk to his dark class (Ninja). All of their base stats went up by quite a bit and they acquired a new technique (which you activate by pressing B). Duran and Hawk have standard single-target techs that unfortunately pause gameplay to activate, but Kevin has a tech that hits all targets on screen. Unfortunately, he randomly alternates between it and a single-target throw attack. It does good damage as well, but generally the multi-target attack is preferred.

Since I'm taking Duran along the light path, he gained the ability to equip shields. This increases his evasion significantly (apparently there's no block mechanic in the game) and even shows up in game. I was surprised, considering his default sprite does not include a shield. For some reason, I assumed he would continue wielding his two-handed sword as normal. Kevin is a werewolf; on the light path he acquired the ability to assume some of his wolf powers during the day with an ability called Pressure Point. Hawk acquired the ability to throw shurikens and use various elemental jutsus.

I still haven't made a final decision on Duran's class. My option are Paladin and Lord. Paladin is a very strong offensive class with access to Saint Saber, a spell that adds Light damage to melee attacks. This is apparently quite helpful against some of the game's final bosses. The Lord class acquires the ability to cast his Heal Light spell on multiple targets, which would mean we wouldn't have to rely so heavily on Poto Oils. The Paladin route is the only way we would be able to get Saint Saber, so it's a tough choice.

On the other hand, Kevin has access to a multi-heal class as well, but my co-op partner would prefer to go God Hand, which gets an ability that fills the tech meter instantly. I'm not sure he's completely decided yet, though. We're more or less agreed that we're going to upgrade Hawk to Nightblade, because it has a lot of useful damage spells that debuff stats, as well as some other useful damage skills. I think it might also be Hawk's most offensive class.

I think I do enjoy the game more than Secret of Mana, but it does inherit some of its poor traits, most notably the unfortunate frequency that combat is paused to play animations. It reminds me of Tales of Phantasia in a way. Several spells pause combat (mostly summons) but there's a good variety of spells that don't. Almost all spells in SD3 pause combat for a noticeable duration. I'm not sure how difficult it would have been at the time to allow action in the background while some of these spells were casting, but it would have been nice.

Drawn Curtains (Day 165)

I am an avid viewer of the League of Legends Championship Series and have been since early last year. It has made me come to the conclusion that I generally prefer watching the game being played to actually playing it myself. Although I have thousands of games played, I haven't played very frequently over the past year or so. The LCS split for the first half of season 4 has just started. The first week of the European LCS has already concluded, and the NA LCS is now on day 2. I'm watching the VODs to catch up.

There have been a ton of surprising picks across both regions already. Darien of Gambit Gaming shocked everyone when he boldly locked in Warwick for the top lane and not only did his job, but excelled. After a couple of successful games, he actually started to attract bans. Personally I feel that's a bit reactionary since there is some pretty reliable counterplay to that champion--but it appears that no has practiced for it, which should strike no one as a surprise.

Another surprise pick was support Galio from SK's Nrated. Even though the choice was counterpicked by SHC's Xin Zhao, Nrated was able to successfully engage a lot of great fights, although his laning phase was somewhat weak.

Another highlight was CLG's game against Dignitas. Their new jungler Dexter is unable to make it to the States for the first week of the NA LCS due to Visa issues so it was announced just an hour before the NA LCS started that retired pro HotshotGG would be temporarily rejoining the roster--in the mid lane! Hotshot has been spamming mid lane games in solo queue pretty much since he retired, so it's no surprise he didn't decide to take up the top lane instead. Their regular mid laner Link takes up the jungle role in Dexter's absence.

Despite six mid lane bans in CLG vs Dignitas, HotshotGG was able to play his main champion Nidalee against another surprise pick from Scarra: Katarina. Though Scarra's Katarina mechanics were stellar and he racked up quite a few kills during the game, CLG was able to play methodically with zoning from Nidalee's spears and Jinx's long range and pull out the win. Oh, and of course Dignitas lost an important Baron fight as they always seem to do.

The most exciting game to watch so far, however, was definitely Curse vs. XDG and it was the first game of day 2 of the NA LCS. XDG surprised everyone when their roster swap (Zuna to jungle, Xmithie to AD carry) paid dividends in their first game of the season. Zuna's Olaf was instrumental in securing them victory and quite impressive. However, his two games since then have been less convincing--including Curse's insane team comp against them in day 2's game 1.

Curse's team comp sounds like something out of a bronze solo queue game: Karthus, Akali, Pantheon, Caitlyn, and Annie. They didn't have a single tanky champion--in fact, the most durable champion in the lineup ended up being IWillDominate on his jungle Pantheon, who built a Randuin's Armor after his initial Brutalizer/Elder Lizard rush. Voyboy helmed Akali at the mid lane while Quas took Karthus to the top lane against a Shyvana. This seemed like a recipe for disaster, but because they made a lot of plays early, the game snowballed incredibly in their favor.

Voyboy's Akali dominated Mancloud's Yasuo in the mid lane. There's a good chance this is a matchup he's familiar with as he very frequently plays assassins in solo queue. I don't know if it's a skill matchup or not, but it seemed like Mancloud has no recourse to defend himself against Akali's onslaught. Voyboy had the audacity to take Exhaust/Ignite in the matchup on a champion with few options for escaping. It was a bold move, but it secured Curse first blood against Yasuo with an early Pantheon gank.

After they took off, the comp was amazing to watch in action. Each champion in the lineup had the potential to start an initiation. Caitlyn had Ace in the Hole, Karthus had Requiem, Pantheon had Grand Skyfall, and Annie of course had her much feared Flash Tibbers combo. Voyboy on Akali had the potential to follow up on any of these long range initiates with Shadow Dance. Although the comp was incredibly risky, it worked beautifully once they got slightly ahead. Mancloud's Yasuo was absolutely shut down.

An Eagle in Your Mind (Day 164)

I find that when I don't have an internet connection, I feel completely closed off. It's my only way to interact with the outside world. There was a time when this wasn't true, of course. I had phone service. I could text my friends, my girlfriends, the people in my life. And of course, I had access to the internet on the phone as well. My phone has been without service for a few months now. I do not have the money to pay for it. This is my fault. I need to be looking more fervently for a job. I've barely put in any applications. Since I heard about the Staples position falling through I haven't done a single thing about it.

I'm afraid, I guess. I'm afraid that terrible emptiness will fill me up when I venture out into the world again. How can one be filled with emptiness? It sounds like a paradox. Emptiness takes away what's already there--but it feels right to say, even so. So often I feel like I'm being filled up with this void. I remember an innumerable string of days where I would get up in the morning and drive to work in a haze. I would dread getting there and look forward to leaving. Once I got home I'd dread when the time came for me to sleep--because that meant I'd just have to wake up to work again.

I know there are people in this world that enjoy the work they do, but it seems they're rare. Is everyone unhappy? I would be lying if I said I never enjoyed a day of the work I did, but those days were certainly rarer. I think it's safe to say I'm not a good worker. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to put my heart into it. I'm always cutting corners even when I don't mean to do so. Then it creeps up on me one day--I'm slacking off. I'm not being productive. I was trying to be productive but I just wasn't.

I've met a lot of people from working at the various jobs I've held. Some became friends, some became acquaintances--but for the most part I've lost contact with them. Maybe we come into contact occasionally on Facebook, but for the most part I have no interaction with them. Why is this? Why do I devalue human social interaction so much? I realize it's important and I enjoy the company of others--to a degree. I greatly enjoy having stimulating conversations with likeminded people but so often I default to a state where I spend most of my time alone.

It's easier, I think. When I'm alone I don't have to worry about how someone else will react. I don't have to impress anyone. And who has more in common with me than. . .me? That's what this blog is for, I think. It's like having a conversation with someone of like mind. It's a self indulgent writing exercise that somewhat makes up for not having anyone to talk to.

That is not to say that I never have conversations with anyone. That's definitely not true. But--it's still not quite what I want. Maybe I find myself attracted only to aloof and socially closed off people. After all, that's how I am. The kind of people I talk to--they so often slip away before I've even realized it. Secretly I want to connect on a deeper level but it doesn't happen. I don't take that step. It's too much to ask. I imagine that no one is prepared to accept that burden.

Sometimes I want to discuss things exhaustively, at length. I want to discuss it to death. But I don't, because I have to take the other party's patience into account. They're not like me, I think. They're not content with a discussion that requires so much of both parties. I feel like I need it, though. I can't tell them that because we're not close enough. I'm not close enough to anyone.

I've been in a couple of relationships over the years. Each had their ups and downs, of course, as all relationships do--but unfortunately, I still felt as if I had no one I could really communicate with. Not on the level I wanted. We might talk for hours and hours but it was mostly the result of the bizarre haze of infatuation where everything your new partner says is the most interesting thing you've ever heard. Once it fades you must get to know each other as you really are. And that's when I have historically realized that I can't communicate with these people in the way I'd like--even when we share that level of intimacy.

Rascuache (Day 163)

Hi, yes, I am still awake.

My co-op partner and I started up Seiken Densetsu 3 the other night. I've played it before, but only very briefly. Right off the bat I can say that I enjoy having a choice of characters to select. We decided on a party of Hawk, Angela, and Lise. Hawk is a thief that wields two daggers, Angela a spoiled brat of a sorceress, and Lise a young valkyrie with a spear. This leaves us with no dedicated healer, which hopefully won't become a problem, since the girl's healing spells in Secret of Mana were invaluable throughout the game.

The battle system, although similar to its predecessor, is significantly modified. It takes place in real time, but the charge system is noticeably absent. Instead, landing successful attacks will fill a meter by your characters' portraits. Once this meter is full, you can press the B button to unleash that character's Tech, which seems to be a successor to Secret of Mana's charge attacks. These Techs vary by character and by character class, so I have read.

That is not to say that recovery time on attacks is completely absent, but it is noticeably shortened. Attempting to attack during this recovery time will not result in fumbled attacks but instead do nothing at all. Combat falls into a sort of rhythm--move, attack, move, attack, move, Tech. It is considerably more fast paced than SoM and attacks are dodged considerably less frequently. When attacks do fail, you're actually given the proper feedback in the combat text.

Unfortunately, combat is paused during most spell casts, which does disrupt the action considerably. However, enemies are unable to act during these pauses (unlike SoM) so I feel like I can forgive the flaw. I feel like a lot of boss fights will devolve into mindlessly spamming the same spell until the boss is dead--but it's impossible to say for sure.

Although we have not made a ton of progress in the game so far, we have done some research on the game mechanics. I knew a bit about the game beforehand, but there was a lot I'd forgotten. Each character in the game has access to a series of upgraded classes that modify their base stats, available spells, and Tech. Each character's class can be upgraded twice, following either a Light or Dark path. For instance, Angela's initial Dark class upgrade is called the Delvar. This class can then be upgraded to Rune Maiden on the Light path or Magus on the Dark path. There are quite a few classes for each character. This extra layer of customization already makes the game more appealing to me than Secret of Mana.

Despite a somewhat clumsy spell interface (inherited from its predecessor), the combat feels a lot tighter. The fan translation is quite polished as well and benefits from not being placed under the restrictions of an official English localization. The character development and exposition are noticeably more fleshed out than SoM, which was extremely barebones. So far, I'm definitely enjoying it.

Rue the Whirl (Day 162)

Well, we finally finished Secret of Mana last night. I think it would have been a lot easier to take on the fnial boss if my co-op partner had been using the sword at all. By the time we reached that final battle, he still had a pitiful level 1 sword that barely dented that guy. We had no way of knowing that we'd be given a spell right before that encounter that would make the sword a lot more powerful against that boss specifically--but only if you have leveled it up to the maximum.

I'm glad that we finished the game, but I must admit that it is by no means perfect. The combat system was often very frustrating and unintuitive. You'll frequently find yourself charging your weapon for a good 6 or 7 seconds only to see a flashy spin attack that fails to hit anything at all. Attacks miss frequently even when they're completely dead on. Attacks having a percent chance to hit and to be evaded makes sense in turn based RPGs because the act of attacking a target is as simple as selecting an option from a menu. In the case of Secret of Mana, you'll find yourself physically stabbing someone with a spear and they'll magically take no damage from it and you'll often get no feedback on why your attack failed.

All regular attacks in Secret of Mana have a sort of recovery time. After you execute a regular attack, you'll have to wait until your meter charges up again or else any attack you launch will be feeble and do very little damage. Not only that, but these feeble attacks will reset your charge meter. I understand that this system was in place to prevent rampant button mashing from being successful, but it does lead to some frustrating situations, especially when surrounded by enemies and stunlocked.

Spells, although consistently useful and very powerful, do have some negative effects on gameplay as well. You'll find yourself using the girl's healing magic extremely frequently over the course of the game and every time you do so, every member of your party freezes in place whereas enemies can continue to take action. You cannot be damaged during this time, but enemies are able to reposition--and in the case of some bosses, this can result in vital weak points being covered up before you have time to act.The final boss fight was particularly bad about this in that your party only has brief windows of time to attack.

Despite all these downsides to the game, it was a charming action RPG that I certainly don't regret playing. The skill ring that allows you to access items and spells in the middle of combat was quite innovative for the time and still pops up from time to time in games today. Exploring dungeons, leveling up, and acquiring new spells and weapons is as fun as it often is in classic RPGs. Additionally, encountering enemies on screen can sometimes be a refreshing change of pace from more traditional turn-based games. If there's anything I'm tired of by now it is the random encounter--and it was a very popular and omnipresent mechanic in games of that era.

It was not an easy game to finish for a number of reasons, but having a co-op partner made the journey much more smooth. We'll be playing Seiken Densetsu 3 now, which I have every reason to believe is a superior game. More on that soon.

Mute Departure (Day 161)

Man, this is really turning into one of those days. I've been staring at this empty field for what seems like hours now. I can't think of what to say. I'm awake and even arguably alert, but I'm definitely not in the greatest of moods. I can't even begin to describe why I feel this way, but it's something that happens every so often. It's just this sensation in the pit of my stomach that makes it difficult to enjoy anything. I've been trying to play Titan Quest for the past couple of hours but my heart's just not into it. I think I've probably managed to burn myself out on that game anyway, but I suspect there's something else going on here.

I found out that the position I thought was opening up at Staples won't actually open up for a few more months. This is irritating, because I was hoping that I would at least have a job interview lined up. I was ready this time. I wasn't just sitting there hoping that it wouldn't happen, complacent in my fate as a stationary and xenophobic swamp monster. I really wanted to get out and start working again--but that fell through. I'll have to start putting in more applications for real now. I should probably start tonight. As soon as possible.

I think I am getting a little restless these days. I haven't left the house in quite awhile. I'm sick of drinking the same coffee, eating the same food, and barely even leaving this room. I'm sick of my clingy cat and the dogs I don't even want to take care of. I'm sick of a lot of things, but I shouldn't complain about them. I'm not taking real steps in improving my current state. I should be trying harder--or even just trying at all. I'm awake, but it doesn't matter when I'm not acting. Action is the important thing here. I need to clean this house. I need to put in applications.

I need to do a lot of things that I'm not doing right now. At least I'm still writing. I have that going for me. Even when it's very difficult to do so, I keep writing. I force it out of me. Because I know it's good for me. It's good for my brain, because it keeps it moving. I've previously just left it there to stagnate, and I think that's done irreparable damage to my psyche. I can't help that, but I can do what I can know to fix it--by taking action. I need to get up and I need to move. I need to get out there. I need to take control of my life.

Before it's too late.

Chromakey Dreamcoat (Day 160)

The bearded man was presently hunkered down in a dusty old room on the other side of the abandoned house. Like the kitchen, it was filthy and sprinkled liberally with animal waste. Under normal circumstances he'd be disgusted to be rummaging around in such circumstances, but he found he no longer cared. He had to find a charger. It was a slim chance, but he had to take it. He had no idea where he was or how to get back to those he cared about.

When the house had been inhabited, this room must have been used for storage. The room was cluttered with desks, plastic containers, and large totes. A rusted and cobwebbed treadmill languished in one corner, its form reeking of disuse. A rickety tan desk was squeezed in beside it, piled high with yellowed books and magazines. As he rifled through the desk's contents, he came across several coloring books in surprisingly good condition. A cursory inspection of the pages revealed them to be unused. Had there been children here? Perhaps the inhabitants had always wanted kids but it never panned out?

There was a medium sized cabinet beside that, its doors carelessly ajar. It contained rows and rows of CDs, ostensibly meticulously organized. The man didn't recognize many of the band names, though most of the collection seemed to be rock music from the 70s and 80s. The people who had lived in that house must be middle-aged, or at least have a taste for music from before their generation. He supposed it didn't really prove anything--he had a buddy who was totally into prog rock like Yes and Genesis but he was only 18 or 19. Still, this stuff was more in the vein of Molly Hatchet than anything else.

He closed the cabinet doors. He had to admit there was some small amount of shameful voyeuristic glee in looking through these strangers' belongings--but that's not why he had been searching the room. He needed to find a phone charger. The laptop he'd left in the bedroom on the other side of the house had at least a small amount of charge left. Surely the house's inhabitants hadn't been gone for long--and maybe they were even coming back? The man glanced around the filthy room once more. He wasn't sure why they'd want to return.

The man thought about inspecting the closet in the corner of the room opposite the treadmill, but it was blocked in by some chairs, another desk, and a couple of totes. He followed his gaze all the way down to his feet where he found a white container with three gray drawers. It seemed to be filled with CDs and DVDs. He felt it might be worth a look so he knelt down to inspect it, ignoring the layer of dust now caked on his blue jeans.

In the top drawer were actually several VHS tapes. He couldn't remember the last time he'd even seen one of those things. They looked alien and unfamiliar, but at the same time distantly comfortable. He recognized some of the movie names as comedies and cartoons he'd seen in his childhood--some of which he'd probably not been supposed to watch. There were a few R-rated comedies that he'd thought were hilarious at the time, but he now realized were pretty asinine. He'd been watching them only because he felt like it made him more mature in some way. As he grew older, he no longer felt that need to be mature. He just wanted to recapture that carefree innocence of his childhood. The grass is always greener, he supposed.

The middle drawer evidently contained more CDs, although these were for a different style of music. He didn't recognize a lot of those either, but it appeared many of the albums were from extreme metal bands. It was probably a safe assumption that these discs had a different owner--probably a son or daughter. He tried to imagine what that kid would have looked like. Long hair. Black t-shirts. Total disregard for authority. Maybe he was just projecting. It wasn't that long ago that the man might have fit that description.

The third and final drawer at the bottom of the container contained a huge mess of tangled wires. A busted set of headphones rested somewhere in that mass, but it was hard to tell if the wires belonged to it or if they were a conglomeration of random cords built up over the years. Gingerly, he pulled the ball of cords out of the drawer, wincing as a tiny spider skittered out behind it. Only a few moments of untangling later, he glimpsed the distinctive white cord of an iPhone charger. He'd found it.

Steinernes Meer (Day 159)

Well, I played a ridiculous amount of games yesterday. That is to say, I only played two games, but I played both for a very long time! Me and my co-op partner started off the day with Titan Quest. We were both playing new characters after having not been satisfied with our Summoner/Ranger combo. This time we went with a Diviner (Dream/Spirit) and Oracle (Spirit/Storm) combo, which seems to be working a lot better. Act 3 was a nightmare last time, but it was actually a breeze the second time through. My character is incredibly durable with Deathchill Aura/Ravages of Time and Trance of Convalescence, while my friend's character just does a ridiculous amount of sustained damage.

We played all the way up to Typhon and beat him, and then decided to take a break. I was enjoying the game still, but felt like giving it a rest for awhile. After some deliberation, we decided to resume our playthrough of Secret of Mana. I was relieved he was up for the idea because he left the last session with a bad taste in his mouth. To be fair, one of the first bosses in the game is complete bullshit. Its patterns are almost impossible to predict and it stuns you frequently. Without access to magic, it's a really tough fight--we had to try it several times to get through.

After that one speedbump, we actually ended up playing for a. . .very long time. We didn't stop playing until something like 6 in the morning, and by that point we had almost made it up to the point I got to by myself last time! I'm pretty pleased about this, because I don't think I ever would have had the motivation to do so myself. Honestly though, it's been a great deal of fun uncovering new magic spells, upgrading weapons, and vanquishing bosses. There is a certain simple charm about the game that cannot be denied.

He's mostly been controlling the protagonist and me the girl. I usually take care of the Sprite's spells in boss fights while he takes over on the girl's support magic. We've been trying to spread out the weapon specializations between the characters as well. He really likes the whip and the glove just like I did--but for this particular runthrough, I'm mostly using the spear, bow, and axe. Anything else just gets tossed at the sprite, who is essentially functioning as fodder.

Hopefully we'll actually finish both games within these next few nights. In fact, it's a pretty good possibility we'll finish Titan Quest today. We've just started Act 4 and we're going to play here in a few minutes--so I'll cut off the entry here.

Leisureforce (Day 158)

I think maybe I underestimated Titan Quest. After playing through the base game with a Summoner, I was left with somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth. I felt weak and the combat felt clunky. The difficulty was insanely unbalanced. Act 2 was a breeze while Act 3 was a nightmare. I'd allocated my stats in a way during Act 2 that left no room for defenses because of how easily I was progressing. In Act 3 I got crit repeatedly and died easily.

I'm playing through again a second time with a different class combo and although a lot of those problems still exist, I am better able to prepare for them. I'm taking the opportunity during the lull in Act 2 to beef up my defenses. I'm also specializing much more. I already have two or three skills completely maxed out at level 18, whereas I didn't have a single skill maxed on the Summoner at level 30. As a result, I feel much more powerful. I think part of that is just selecting a much better build.

In my first playthrough, I combined Nature and Earth to make a Summoner and I pumped points into Dire Wolves, Sylvan Nymph, Regrowth, and the tanky Core Dweller. Because I spread my points so thin, however, none of these summoned allies were very strong. The Core Dweller in particular (which I had about five points in) would die almost immediately. It would have gone much more smoothly if I had decided to concentrate on leveling up one pet at a time. Focusing on the Core Dweller would have made things a lot easier since it has the ability to attract the attention of enemies and keep them off of me.

This time I combined Spirit and Dream to make a Diviner. It sounds like a spellcaster, and I think it can be depending on your build path. In my case, however, I went with more of a melee fighter. I immediately maxed out Life Drain by level 5, giving me a powerful early nuke that restores a huge amount of my health. After acquiring the Dream mastery, I made a beeline for Phantom Strike and the upgrade Dream Stealer. This gives me a long cooldown gap closer that puts me into stealth and deals massive AoE damage upon arrival. It also stuns! By investing so many points into it early on, I'm doing massive amounts of damage. My highest crit was something like 730--at level 18! The highest damage I'd ever dealt on my Summoner was something like 300, and that was by level 30.

It seems as if the game very much rewards thoughtful planning of builds--but by the same token harshly punishes distributing points willy-nilly. It wouldn't be that much of an issue, but refunding points eventually becomes very expensive. On my Summoner, refunding a single point would cost 45,000 gold, and that adds up fast.

Still, I'm having a lot more fun this time around. Before I just wanted to get the game over with, but this time I'm actually looking forward to see how my build evolves. It's not a perfect game by any means but it's a lot better than I thought.

All to All (Day 157)

I'm feeling particularly geeky and prone to the making of lists today. I think I'm going to list a few series that I have played and talk about the games I have and have not completed! I might as well limit myself to series that contain no fewer than five games. When I've played 2-3 games in a series, I get this obsessive tendency to complete every game in that series, even if maybe some of the titles are not up to that same standard of quality.

I think the biggest example here is the Final Fantasy series, which of course I've been playing since I was a little kid. Final Fantasy IV (released in America as Final Fantasy II originally) was my first game in the series. Though it was flawed, I feel in love with the game's drama and characters and have since played many different versions of the game as it has been released and rereleased over the years.

Final Fantasy

• Final Fantasy: I have played several different versions of this game but to my intense shame I have never finished it. To be honest, it's not the most fun game in the world despite its cultural importance. I don't know when it's going to happen, but this game will definitely be finished at some point. The question is, which version do I play? I have briefly played the NES original, the Final Fantasy Origins version on PlayStation, the GBA Dawn of Souls version, and have not tried the PSP remake. 
• Final Fantasy II: This entry in the series is often derided by fans because of the way leveling up works. Statistics are attained by performing certain actions. Being hit increases your defense, and attacking builds your offense. That's a very simplified way to describe it. Like its predecessor, I've briefly played the NES version, but not much else. I haven't played this one as much because I always promised myself I'd finish the original game first. Unfortunately, that never happened!
• Final Fantasy III: This is the earliest Final Fantasy game I have ever finished! I played the NES fan translation very briefly, but only made it as far as Jinn's Cave. This game reprises the job system from the original title. In the case of the DS remake, your party consists of actual characters instead of generic character classes--although the job system remains. I played through the DS version and it was completely playable but ultimately a forgettable game. It took me a really long time to finish the game's final dungeon.
• Final Fantasy IV: Hoo boy. I've finished the American SNES version, the Japanese SFC version (fan translated), the GBA port, the DS remake, and I've briefly played the PSP version bundled with Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. I am a fan of this game. The plot and characters are silly and overdramatic, but I feel they have a certain charm. The gameplay (except in the case of the American SNES version) is pleasingly challenging and each playable character contributes something unique to the party. An all-around solid addition to the series.
• Final Fantasy V: The last entry in the series to not be localized in English the first time around. After failing to release Final Fantasy II and III, Squaresoft decided to release FFIV in English and pretend that it was only the second game of the series. For reasons that are unclear, they also skipped Final Fantasy V and then released the sixth game as Final Fantasy III! This led to a lot of confusion for gamers for years to come. Final Fantasy V was one of the first games to be translated by fans and the first foreign Final Fantasy that I ever played. It's a fantastic title that should have definitely been released the first time around. Fortunately, they did eventually release the game on the GBA and PlayStation.
• Final Fantasy VI: Probably my favorite title in the main series. It has a cast of great characters all with interesting back stories. Although this title did begin the trend of over customizing characters, each character still had unique abilities that gave them compelling reasons to include in a party. It was also the first Final Fantasy to introduce a "limit break" system, though at the time they were called Desperation Techniques. As someone who has played this game multiple times through, I have only seen them pop up a few times. They are quite rare and can only be executed by initiating a Fight command at low health.
• Final Fantasy VII: Definitely the most overrated title in the series, but I do appreciate it for introducing a whole new audience to Final Fantasy and it's honestly still a great game in its own right. I'm pretty sure I've only played this game through once--I definitely wouldn't mind playing it again. I might wait until the inevitable HD remake. 
• Final Fantasy VIII: A great game with awful characters and a questionable plot. It had a beautiful aesthetic and wonderful music, but it continued the trend from FFVI of having an incomprehensible plot and flat characters.
• Final Fantasy IX: Final Fantasy returns to its roots somewhat by increasing the party size (from 3 to 4) and again making each character contribute unique aspects to the party. Skills are learned from items but many are unique to specific characters. Zidane can steal, Vivi uses magic, Garnet uses summons. The graphic style is much more cartoonish than the last two titles and the presentation is much more lighthearted in general. My favorite PlayStation Final Fantasy (next to Tactics).
• Final Fantasy X: Because I didn't own a PS2 until very very late in its life cycle, I actually never finished this game! In fact, I never got very far at all. I own the game, but for some reason I've never tried to play through it. I know a lot about it from hanging out at FF message boards for years, but I've just never followed through. Will definitely play through soon.
• Final Fantasy XI: Doesn't count. :p It's always bugged me that an MMO (and now TWO of them) have been included as a part of the main series.
• Final Fantasy XII: This game was awesome in a lot of ways. It has an pseudo-MMO style of combat in that enemies are encountered on the overworld and attacked directly with spells and attacks. The world was massive and lots of secrets to explore and the plot was epic and engaging. The characters didn't stand out very much to me and the protagonist Vaan was almost completely irrelevant to the plot. It was a very enjoyable game, though.
• Final Fantasy XIII: The main complaint leveled at this game is how incredibly linear it is--and it's true. You spend a lot of time walking through straight corridors to get to your next destination. Despite this, the game's absolutely beautiful to look at and the combat system is really fun. The characters are mostly lame and annoying aside from Sazh who is amazing. Solid game.
• Final Fantasy XIV: Also doesn't count. ._.

TL;DR

Games Beaten: III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XII, XIII

Still to Complete: I, II, X

Okay, let's maybe do one series per entry. That ended up being longer than I expected.

Resurface (Day 156)

Looks like I'll be playing co-op Secret of Mana as soon as we finish Titan Quest. We fired up ZSNES last night to make sure that we could get everything to work, and it seemed like it went smoothly. With the aid of Tunngle, we were able to get connected easily. I think the game will probably be ten times more fun without having to rely so heavily on the game's criminally bad AI.

I stayed up until 3 AM last night playing Titan Quest. We should be done with act 3 and hopefully act 4 by tonight, and then maybe we can knock out act 5 the night after that. It's a pretty good game, but I don't imagine I'll be giving it a second playthrough--at least not immediately. I kind of would like to experiment with a different class combination, but that can wait until another time.

As a result of staying up so late, my sleep schedule is probably going to get messed up again. I woke up at a pretty reasonable time today (around 9:30) but I'm not feeling refreshed at all. I think the only reason I woke up was because it was so cold, to be honest. the temperature is somewhat more comfortable now, but I still feel pretty weary. The coffee I had after my shower is only serving to make me feel twitchy and slightly strung out instead of awake and refreshed. That's usually a pretty good sign that I didn't get enough sleep. I guess that's true; I think I only got about five hours.

Should I take a nap, though? With the caffeine currently circulating in my system I'm not entirely sure it's possible to do so. At the same time I'm in that kind of mood where I can't really enjoy anything I'm doing. I have that kind of unsatisfied quality where your eyes and stomach sort of hurt but you're not really... actively sleepy. It's not a great feeling. I'm still not 100% sure why I woke up so early in the first place. Maybe I should have just tried to go back to sleep. Maybe my cat Wataya was being insistent on waking me up. That guy can be a real jerk sometimes.

I wanted to get up and get some things done today, but I just really don't feel well. Maybe if I successfully take a short nap I'll wake up refreshed and I'll feel like cleaning the kitchen. Anything would be better than mindlessly refreshing reddit and TweetDeck and doing nothing in particular. Drinking that coffee was a bad idea. Should have just gone back to sleep. Oh well; I suppose I'll give the nap thing a try.

I'm going to try to keep this meandering personal life posts to a minimum in the future, but it stresses me out when I don't get these done at a particular time of day--so sometimes I just write about whatever. I think these posts aren't really the majority so it's okay to have them sometimes. But man, I really need to work on getting more sleep. It's the only way to keep my brain functioning properly.

Patagonia (Day 155)

I keep letting myself get distracted. I've been meaning to start writing this entry since early this morning, but now we're heading into the afternoon and I still haven't started. It's not as if I'm not inspired. I actually have several ideas I could explore, but for some reason I keep staring at this blank white text box and my fingers refuse to spring to life. I hesitate to call it Writer's Block, because I don't think that's a valid excuse. I guess part of it is laziness, but I think it's mostly indecision. How to begin?

I've spent the last couple of nights hiding under the covers of my bed as my house's heating failed and the temperature outside dipped to 1 degree. A small space heater has been my constant companion. Fortunately, the cold front seems to be moving on and although my heat has not been fixed (and likely will not be in the foreseeable future), I predict the space heater will be more than adequate for the rest of the winter. If not. . .well, I'll figure something out.

Tomorrow I think I will begin the monumental task of cleaning the house. It's something I've put off for far too long and I'm honestly kind of tired of all the random things strewn around the house. Everything is disorganized and cluttered. I can't fix the problem completely, but if I can at least somewhat alleviate the issue I think it'll go a long way in lessening my irritation.

I wrote yesterday about playing short increments of a lot of different games and writing short blurbs about them. I think I'd still like to do that, but I should probably wait until I've gotten a few more important things done. If I can remember to do so, I'll start compiling a short list of games to try out. I'll also try to take at least one screenshot of each game I play. This blog does not have enough pictures!

I skipped playing Titan Quest last night because I was sleepy and it was incredibly cold. I'm definitely going to try to play tonight not only because I'd like to finish the game, but because whatever meager socialization I can get, I should try to maintain. I'm essentially trapped here for the time being, so playing games with people online while voice chatting is literally the best I can do.

Going to try to play some Gungnir and possibly some Orcs Must Die 2 as well--Rob and I have started intermittently playing that again. It's still a great game but for the longest time I thought I would be unable to run it without a video card. With some experimentation I was able to get it to run pretty adequately, though it does lag occasionally.

This entry is sort of a clusterfuck of different things, but I think it's probably the best I have to offer today. Hopefully I'll have something more substantial to talk about tomorrow.

Antarctic Handshake (Day 154)

I have been thinking about some games I want to revisit in the future. Every time I make one of these posts, I tend to end up not playing a single one of the games I talk about, but one can only hope that I'll get to them at some point in the future. I'm reminded of the phase I went through where I wanted to play all of the Infinity Engine games. I finished Baldur's Gate, the expansion, and the sequel, but stopped at the sequel's expansion. I even tried Icewind Dale but it wasn't holding my attention. Will I ever get back to those games? I will probably play Throne of Bhaal but it's somewhat unlikely I'll ever get back to IWD. 

These are not the games I'm talking about today, though. Let's take a look at the games I've been playing or have finished lately. The big one, of course, is Path of Exile. I've actually played through the main game twice already with two different characters and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. It might be my favorite of all the ARPGs floating around right now, with Torchlight II and Diablo 3 lagging behind. It's also sort of allowed me to catch up with an old friend and co-worker of mine. We used to play WoW together frequently and I think we've committed to playing through a lot of co-op games whenever we have the opportunity to do so. I'm hoping I can convince him to play some old school SNES games as well, because I think that's the only way I'm ever going to get through Secret of Mana.

I was actually well on my way to completing SoM but due to foreseen technical issues, I lost a huge amount of save data. I really didn't feel up to the task of repeating all the content I'd just completed, so I decided to put it on hold. This has happened to me a few times over the years, actually. I had the same problem with Terranigma and Breath of Fire II, both of which are pretty decent games that I definitely would have finished otherwise. If I'm lucky, my co-op partner will agree to play SoM at some point, and if he likes that, maybe we'll try Seiken Densetsu 3 as well, which to be honest is a much better game than SoM.

Right now we're working on Titan Quest, another decent ARPG in the Diablo II vein. I don't think I would have ever had the motivation to play entirely through the game in single player. It's not a terrible game, but it definitely lacks polish. The combat's just not as satisfying as other games in the genre, even if the game does have a lot of great ideas. Spell effects are somewhat lackluster and encounters less than exciting. I very much doubt I'll be giving it a second playthrough, but it seems worth one run at least.

I'm also playing Gungnir, which I just discussed in the last entry. To be honest, it's kind of put me in the mood for SRPGs again. I was thinking of looking into a couple that I never managed to finish, such as Vandal Hearts for the original PlayStation. It had great gameplay, but exceedingly poor art direction and presentation. It was also plagued by a pretty terrible sequel. I've tried to replay it once before (I do actually own the game) but got distracted as I so often do. It's not the only PlayStation game I'd like to revisit, either. There's also Front Mission 3 and Vagrant Story, both honestly pretty good games in their own right. I'm not sure why I never finished those in the first place. FM3 is long and Vagrant Story got pretty difficult, but they would both be worth giving another try. 

I brought up Breath of Fire II, so I might as well throw Breath of Fire III on top of that. I've only finished the first and fourth games of this series--and I feel it's a series that has gotten better with each iteration, so that's kind of strange. I haven't played BoF V: Dragon Quarter, so I can't vouch for that. I hear it's very different, but I wouldn't mind trying it at some point either. 

I think someday soon I'm going to start playing very small increments of games I'd like to finish and write short blurbs about them, perhaps accompanied by screenshots. Maybe that will fool me into thinking that I have even the slighest chance of chipping away at my monumental backlog.

Hopefulness (Day 153)

So hey, I actually did end up playing Gungnir for a little bit the other night but I kind of forgot to write about it. I haven't played through a lot of it yet, but I'm liking it so far. It's a strategy RPG in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics but it has its own unique Sting flourishes.

The art style and presentation are very similar to Knights in the Nightmare, Yggdra Union, and Riviera, which I don't mind at all. The Dept. Heaven series doesn't share common characters or locations (except perhaps for a shared Asgard, as I read once upon a time) but there is a sense of connectedness in the way the games are presented. The font in dialogue, the character artwork, and the quirky way that actions are announced ("Break Out!") are all features shared with other games in the Dept. Heaven series. Durability is a common theme in the series as well (items are good for only a limited number of uses) but I haven't seen that particular use case pop up yet.

Like many other strategy RPGs, movement and actions are turn-based and take place on a grid. Moving behind foes will confer advantages to accuracy and the ability to nullify blocking. A meter ticks down to when it's your party's turn. Once that happens you are able to move one member of your party, at which point they will be given a wait time according to what actions they took during that turn, such as moving or attacking. Using a potion while not moving will result in a shorter wait time than moving a long distance and attacking, for instance. If that character's wait time is still ticking once your party's turn comes up again, you might consider moving another character. If you choose to move that character before the wait time is up, the character will lose maximum HP for the duration of that battle.

It's an interesting system, but I'm not sure how much I like it just yet. Most strategy RPGs either let you move your whole team at once or wait until it's each specific character's turn. Either way is fine with me--but this is a little strange. I haven't uncovered all the mechanics of the game yet, though. Judging by Sting's track record, there'll be some more strange ones to mess around with.

You can also perform combo attacks with your other party members at the expense of Tactics Points. Tactics Points are acquired by moving and attacking, and also by capturing bases on the map. The bases are represented by squares on the grid with a flag. The enemy team can capture them as well and accrue their own Tactics Points. This gives you a way to use other members of your party on the same turn, but there is a downside to spending your points on combos. Tactics Points impart a bonus to all of your party member's attacks--the more you have, the higher the bonus. When you use a combo attack, you lose some of those points in exchange for an immediate burst of damage. You have to weigh the benefit of losing consistent damage in the long run.

You also seem to level up and acquire new skills based on the kind of weapon you have equipped. There are such classes as Fencer, Assassin, Archer, and Thrower, but I don't know a whole lot about their characteristics yet. The Assasin I have has two different weapons equipped that she can switch between at will, and each weapon has different skills associated with it. As you level up, you acquire more Capacity, which is evidently linked with what kinds of weapons you can equip, but I'm sort of in the dark on how it works. I'll continue playing and figure this out as I go--and probably write about it some more. 

Weightless Thought (Day 152)

The bearded man had been wandering the woods for days. He was keenly aware of the hunger gnawing away at his stomach and the foul-tasting water he'd drunk from a nearby stream had done little to quench his thirst. He began to wonder if he should have just stayed put at the cabin. Surely it would have been easier for the authorities to locate him if he had stayed in one place.

The man was second guessing himself. He was not usually the kind of person to take action in this kind of situation--but he was tired of who he was. Things felt different now. He wanted to be proactive, to take control of his own destiny. If he reached the edge of the woods surely he'd be near a road. Roads led to people that could help him. He could call her and let her know he was okay. That was all he needed to do.

As soon as the thought had sprung to mind, he felt the trees around him thinning. He could just make out a clearing ahead of him--and unless his eyes were playing tricks on him, he could see a house as well. It was a squat, wide house with vinyl siding that had clearly seen better days.

Excited at the prospect of finding a sign of civilization, the man sped up despite the burning pain in his calves. Before he knew it, he had reached the house after crossing a small clearing. He circled around to the front side to find a very long driveway. He couldn't even see if it led to a main road, but he imagined it must. There was an ancient rusted truck that had obviously not been used in years. He guessed no one was home.

He clambered up a few steps to the porch anyway, rapping on the door a few times. If anyone had been home it would have surely disturbed them. Despite his better judgment, he tested the doorknob and found the door to be open. He cast a quick glance around him reflexively. There was no one there to see him. The house was seeming uninhabited. Surely there was no harm in looking inside.

As he stepped inside the small house, his senses were assailed by a dank, musty smell. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dramatic difference in light level compared to the outside world. He felt as if he was stepping into an underground cave. It took him some time before he could make out any details of the room he'd discovered.

It appeared to be a living room--or at least, it had once been. Various bits of paper, trash, and rat droppings littered the hardwood floor. An oversized plush couch was pressed against the far wall. It was heavily stained and smelled foul. A coffee table was shoved into a corner on his left, covered in old magazines, playing cards, and a dozen other things. An old-fashioned CRT television rested on a cart beside it, its cracked screen caked in layers of dust. Beyond that was a hallway that led to what he thought was a kitchen. As dreadful as the prospect of finding food in such a place sounded, he felt it might be an option worth investigating.

With great care, he tiptoed around the piles of gunk on the floor and made his way to the kitchen. The kitchen was in somewhat better shape but that wasn't saying much. The familiar whirr of a refrigerator running was absent--though the object in question was tucked into a nook between cabinets. It too was covered in dust. In spite of his reservations, he wrenched the puke green door open to find. . .nothing. There was nothing there.

He took some time to rifle through all the filthy cabinets in the kitchen, but each yielded absolutely nothing. This house had been well and truly abandoned. For what purpose he did not know. He felt depressed suddenly. He'd finally found a sign of civilization and it was this--an empty, abandoned house. With no food. As reluctant as he was to leave, he realized there was nothing for him there. He'd searched the kitchen top to bottom, and found nothing but dust, cobwebs, and more rat droppings.

As he was crossing the threshold to the house's porch, something caught his eye. In the living room there was another door. Curiosity getting the better of him, the man approached the door and tried the knob. It turned slightly and. . .it clicked. He wiggled it a bit, but the door would not budge. It was locked. Why would a door like this be locked in an abandoned house? He tried to make out something of the room through a crack in the door but it was no use. It was firmly locked.

He couldn't leave it like this. If it was locked, maybe there was something important back there. Something that could help him. The thought made little sense even to him, but he couldn't just abandon the prospect. As tired and hungry as he was, he felt suddenly consumed by a need to find out what was behind that door. He put some pressure on the door to test its strength. If the house had been unused for some time, perhaps it had begun to break down. With enough force he might be able to break down the door.

The door gave no sign of giving under the moderate amount of pressure he applied. He decided to throw his whole weight into a good shove. He did so, and felt the door creak slightly. Although it was a pain on his weary shoulders, he continued to shove. With great exertion, he put all of the force he could muster into a bodily shove until the door finally opened, showering splinters into the room. He fell forward due to the momentum and fell facefirst into blue carpeting.

He grunted irritably as he rose again to his feet, though he was thankful the room was not hardwood like the living room. He stepped all the way inside and surveyed his surroundings. It was slightly smaller than the entry room and had blue carpeting that appeared to have dulled with age. The room was cluttered with various odds and ends and everything, as usual, was covered in a fine layer of dust. A shabby white dresser took up one corner. Beside it was an entertainment center with its principal components missing. A mini-fridge was perched awkwardly atop it. He peered inside and again found nothing.

There were two windows in the room, just next to the entertainment center. The drapes were missing and the blinds were yellowed and falling apart. There was a flipped over office chair at the foot of the windows. Several of the wheels were missing. A sturdy oaken desk lay in the other corner just on the other side of the windows. Amidst a pile of smelly clothes and toppled speakers was a slender gray object. After drawing closer he identified it as a laptop--and on top was a squarish smartphone.

If the house had been abandoned, why would those who lived here abandon these things? Perhaps they had malfunctioned and they felt no need to take them with them. That made sense--but he felt the need to investigate them anyway. He picked up the phone and stared at the blank screen. It was dusty and slightly moist, but appeared otherwise undamaged. The phone itself was encased in a hard shell designed to protect it from the elements and accidents. He imagined it might work if he found a way to charge it. Figuring it might be useful later, he pocketed the phone.

Next, he investigated the laptop. He picked it up, shook some of the dust loose, and opened it up to take a look at the screen. It was in surprisingly good condition--but without electricity, he would not be able to turn it on. He gave it a try anyway, and was surprised when it hummed to life. If it still had power, then. . . He tried the phone as well, but it was no use. The phone was truly dead.

"There's a chance this phone still has service," he whispered to himself, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar sounding.

He turned off the laptop and closed the lid. If he could find a charging cable for this phone, he'd be able to charge it with the remaining energy of the laptop. He'd need to conserve the power until that point. With that, he began to investigate the rest of the room.

In the corner opposite the desk was a small bed, clearly designed for one person. It was draped in a ratty blanket. When he tossed it off the bed he caught sight of a spider scurrying to safety. Grimacing, he fought the urge to recoil in terror and examined the bedside table. Aside from a non functioning alarm clock, there was nothing there. He checked the cabinets in the entertainment center, but found nothing but speaker wire, old damp notebooks, and more spiders. The closet was full of yellowed books, old clothes, and totes full of old DVDs, video games, and memorabilia. He'd have to check somewhere else.