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

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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)

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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.

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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

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2 min read
16
Mar

Goodnight, mom.

My mom died on Thursday night. There was a blood moon. She would have loved it. Whole thing was pretty on brand for her all things considered.

When I was in middle school my mom found my Livejournal where I complained about her and my family and also wrote about various Star Wars and Lord of the Rings minutiae. Ever since then I've been reticent to talk about my family or personal life online. I guess the good news is she can't get mad at me for it anymore.

(Also I did ask her if she was comfortable with me

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2 min read