Souls Like Strings

One day, tiny flames will dance across the darkness

Why

• A perfect end to the series & its world
• Friede, Gael, the Dancer, Pontiff... so many great bosses
• Fan service galore for those who've been there from the start
• World design is more DS2 than 1, but still plenty of secrets/shortcuts

Why Not

• Nope, just play it

Impressions

It feels so long ago that the pandemic gave me the push I needed to finally play Elden Ring, starting a journey which ends today with the first flame finally fading. I'll play all the other...

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.

A pauper can prince, but can a prince pauper?

Like the Tom Sawyer books I struggled reading the archaic English to begin with, but I'm glad I stuck with it. These days the overall plot would be considered a pretty standard 'Freaky Friday' type deal; two very different people learn to appreciate their own circumstances by switching places, but even after 150-odd years of similar stories Twain's still stands out.

Both the pauper-turned-prince and prince-turned-pauper acquit themselves admirably over the course of the book despite obvious difficulties in...

Yep, that's a Daniel Mullins game

Why

• Typically deft 'game about games' from this dev
• The more different games you play the more you'll enjoy this
• 'Break/build the game' sections are a highlight gameplay-wise

Why Not

• Genre-hopping affects pacing if you dislike some genres
• Don't try the 'Space Marine' sections on a trackpad

Impressions

You might think being known for 4th-wall breaking meta-games might blunt the impact of said games, but that doesn't stop Daniel Mullins churning out bangers. Inscryption set a high bar; and while The Hex doesn't quite reach it a...

• Don't assume prod resources are in the prod AWS account and staging resources are in the staging one
  • Turns out both staging & prod S3 buckets for the React app are in the prod account, along with the prod Cloudfront
  • But staging Cloudfront is in the staging account, explaining why CI could never find the Cloudfront distro let alone invalidate it
• It's possible to have ~4 hours of meetings in a day and still feel productive
• state is meant to be a random, opaque value in OAuth
  • It's definitely not meant to be a nested...

Self enjoy. Game good.

Why

• Beautiful hand-drawn art-style
• Plenty of chuckle-inducing moments
• Chill & atmospheric

Why Not

• You require action or difficulty for a game to be good
• Completionists may have the chill atmosphere ruined by rage-inducing hide and seek

Impressions

I bought this as another attempt to nostalgia-bait The Wife into enjoying gaming after Axyz ended up being more fun for me than someone who played Kula World decades ago. This time was much more successful, as she actively asked to play Moomintroll multiple times (and in quick succession!). I even had...