Brent - lesser daemon (Page 4)

25

Mar

Games That Know They're Games

Today was supposed to be my first day back in the office in a while, so naturally I'm sick. I think a frustrating thing, in times like this, is not really being able to isolate the variable that's making me feel lousy. I haven't been taking great care of myself, I've barely been home in the past month, and I certainly haven't been getting the best sleep. So is feeling bad today an actual illness or just the consequences of my own actions? Hard to say. I went into the office for a few hours and felt too feverish to

1 min read

24

Mar

Letter of Recommendation: Oshi-Gokko

Keeping today's post short and sweet. I went to the launch party for Oshi-Gokko at WonderVille last night, which was a whole lot of fun, and played in my first games tournament in ages. I got washed in the first round but I did lose to the eventual winner of the tournament so I'll call that a win. I am biased on this one, since my friend Mat was one of the lead devs on the game, but I think it's a really delightful two-player arcade cab and a great addition to the Arcade Commons collection.

The game's a sit-down

1 min read

22

Mar

What I'm Playing (March '25)

Visual novels are kind of a comfort genre for me. I think I get the same soothing effect from them that a lot of people get from games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing. So it should come as no surprise that I've been playing a lot of VN or VN-adjacent games recently. Here's some stuff I've enjoyed over the past few weeks:

Citizen Sleeper 2: Builds on the solid base of the first game and adds some fun mechanical crunch with missions and the dice-breaking mechanic. I always really enjoy Gareth Damian Martin's games - tumblr-coded Disco Elysium-likes (positive)

3 min read

21

Mar

I Don't Like Leaving Things Unfinished

Five weeks ago, when I found out my mom was in the hospital, I was exactly 25 days into the hundred days straight of writing I had committed to. Obviously I, uh, did not keep up with it after that.

I do not feel particularly bad about taking a break while I was dealing with this. I did a lot of journaling during this time and while it was valuable for me I don't know how much good it would do for my broader writing goals to post the equivalent of a primal scream on my public blog every day.

1 min read

20

Mar

I would prefer not to

I would like to imagine that a world where there is less paperwork is possible. I don't think that's asking for too much. Or maybe just where there's like. A number you can call to tell them someone died. And they do all the paperwork for you.

The promise of AI or LLMs or whatever new tech there is has always seemed to me to be built on faulty priors. They are a great way to automate this type of thing I guess but it all seems to assume that a world with this much paperwork is a necessity or

2 min read