(Book 2 of The Wandering Inn, No Killing Goblins, is coming out on Tuesday, September 22nd in bookstores!)

<I’m doing a live Q&A with Erin Bennett and Gavin on the 22nd at 7 PM EST! Come and watch!>

https://www.youtube.com/live/cXukl39CeOk

I’m doing better. Well and truly, I think the time off is exactly what I needed. Not to just grieve but to be someone…distracted.

Sadness comes and goes. The feeling of losing someone isn’t in the moments when you break down and mourn like a Hollywood movie. Or rather, not just in that. People can’t do that all the time. It’s in the moment when you turn your head or think of how someone would have reacted or what they might be doing and realize, again, they’re gone.

That’s what it’s been like for me with my grandparents. I haven’t lost anyone in my family closer than that and so this time is healing.

Sorry, I don’t wish to chase you off with that. I just want to be open about my time off being exhaustion and processing my Grandfather’s passing. But what have I been doing?

Well, I went on a vacation for a bit. And that was nice. I also played video games. Less than you might think. I’d like to review a few for fun since I never have the energy to do it normally.

Star Wars: Zero Company — It’s like X-Com 2, but Star Wars. If you liked X-Com 2…I wouldn’t recommend this game. Not without mods which I doubt it’ll get. If you super like Star Wars, go ahead and buy it. But it’s less strategic than X-Com 2. Your base-building is far, far less satisfying or complex. And you don’t really lose people. It’s possible but essentially you won’t/shouldn’t since they’re companions and losing them hurts too much.

I played without reloading saves on hard mode and I never lost anyone. Mostly, though, the problem is that the story’s not great. It’s a common thing in Star Wars games; a few are standout hits like KOTOR or Jedi Academy, but this game is not satisfying enough gameplay-wise or story-wise.

Frankly the story’s a C- at best. And the gameplay, at least how I was playing it, didn’t feel satisfying in terms of upgrades. You do a bit more damage and uh…that’s it. I’d love to give it a better review since I enjoyed killing silly battle droids and the story goes further than you’d think across timelines (it starts in the Clone Wars), but yeah. Bet you thought I was gonna be complimentary about the games. Not this one! No long essay like my other ones about God of War: Ragnarok, Omori, and so on. It’s just not worth getting despite how shiny it looks.

Endacopia — Okay this one is good. However! It’s not for everyone. Two caveats to this game; it’s a point-and-click game echoing the old Windows style games in graphics and playstyle. Sort of like Putt Putt Goes to the Moon except more complex if you get that reference. Insert other point-and-click puzzlers if you want I still need to beat that game.

However, caveat #2 it goes both scary and really dark at times. Like trigger warnings dark. Nothing as bad as, well, some games, but still.

I quite enjoyed it. I had reservations about the theme of the game and I can’t spoil the ending here but there is a certain cynical darkness for darkness’ sake these games can embody but by the end I didn’t quite feel that.

With that said, I feel like the endings were the weakest part. I would have loved to have a final ending that resolved some endings. Ending A, which I got, great, ties it all together. Ending B hugely upsetting for reasons you may get. Ending C…okay, but we needed an Ending D that fixes the issues suddenly brought up in Ending B. I think the creator just ran out of steam and I still recommend this game. Just…Ending B bothers me, the last 5 seconds especially.

Age of Empires 2 — Yeah that’s right it’s still going. I was playing campaigns and I’ve played all the new DLC’s which are still coming out. There’s a Vikings-themed DLC coming out and I just play the game for the campaigns.

Did you know I watch T90Official, a Youtuber who commentates the PvP matches of AoE2 a lot? Like I’m playing a game and he’s commentating on my second monitor. It’s strangely relaxing. I don’t play multiplayer at all. I hate competitive games but this game is so vast with all its civilizations and strategy that it’s a weird addiction. Sometimes I stop watching but I come back after a year or two.

I’m not even good at the campaigns. I hate builds in RTS and I’m not as fast as I used to be—and I was never quick with hotkeys and playing this kind of game. My entire strategy is building a castle to deal with the AI as fast as I can and then completing campaign objectives.

Nevertheless I enjoy this game. Definitely play it and it’s probably worth the most for your money on sale if you like RTS.

Those are my reviews. I played another game which I am positive had AI-generated narration in it. It was very obvious and utterly incomprehensible, as if someone chose the most egregiously vociferous stylitics methodology of imparting vocabulary to effect the most persuasively intelligent methodology of communication while denigrating the commonality of the English language. They wrote like that a lot, but worse.

I won’t dignify it with a name. Mostly, though, I did things other than playing games. Talked a bit. Ate good food. Slept a lot—I had days when I slept 14 hours. And I’m thinking of things to write.

I feel like writing, already. Which is good because my break is already halfway up. Why does it go so fast?

But for the moment…things are really looking better. Which is good because there are things I have put off that I really shouldn’t.

For instance, Book 2 of The Wandering Inn, No Killing Goblins, is coming out on the 22nd of September. That’s a very fast release after Book 1 and I hope people are motivated to keep reading it. I’ll do a few posts but I hope it gets a lot of readers who enjoyed Book 1 to pick it up.

We came close to the NYT Bestseller’s list last time and we still hit the USA Today’s bestseller’s list. Who knows, maybe Book 2 can hit it? We’ve got a lot of books to try.

The quick releases means both books will be in bookstores at the same time which’ll be very cool. The artwork’s also new so I hope it catches the eye. I’ve heard people have gotten into reading the story who’d never pick it up online—my Aunt said she was reading it on her couch in her downtime, which was a huge honor.

So this is worth it, and I’ll be back to work in a bit. I have a new hobby I’m trying out I’ll tell you about if I make something cool and that’s all from me. Thanks for reading, and hope you’re also getting some rest. From reading if nothing else. Sometimes you need a vacation from that, too. The Wandering Inn’s long enough to need one. Until the next chapter,

—pirateaba