Hello, Internet! I hope you had a good weekend; mine was fun and relaxing! As usual, I try to treat every weekend like a mini-vacation: not thinking about work or (especially) politics; only working on personal projects that I enjoy; and disconnecting from news and social media.

This weekend: I hung out with my brother; got to have lunch with my sister and catch up; played a couple of video games; and did a lot of writing for – and ran – a session of Offworlders for family game night.

Citizen Sleeper 2

I don't play many new video games but since I have been writing a new setting for the Offworlders TTRPG (more on that later), I've been looking for space sci-fi ideas—so an NPR article about Citizen Sleeper 2 caught my eye last week. Now that it’s out and I’ve been playing it I’m disappointed, I guess?

Maybe it's just because I'm new to the visual novel genre, but I'm definitely not doing something right as I've gotten stuck twice with a full set of broken dice and no fuel (or dice to roll if I had it) to get materials to repair said dice on the easiest difficulty setting. The game is getting “very positive” reviews on Steam so obviously the problem here is me and my n00bishness. Maybe I’ll take another stab at it some time after there’s been a few patches but I’m over it right now.

Offworlders

A large portion of my free time last week and Saturday morning was spent world-building for a setting to play the free, rules-light Offworlders TTRPG in with our family games. What I’ve come up with is a beautiful hodgepodge that’s got some Battlestar Galactica, Expanse, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, and Warhammer 40k all thrown together, along with some D&D/Tolkien-style fantasy, and I'm running a story that is inspired by “Lost Mine of Phandelver” and the Progenitors from Star Trek.

We played on Sunday afternoon with my wife playing a human tech geek, our teenager playing a human ex-soldier type warrior, and our 8-year old playing a good Ork. The first session of the story, which I've titled the “Lost Ruins of the Ral'i,” was a success with the crew tracking down the pirates who kidnapped their employer and defeating one of their captains. Looking forward to continuing this adventure!

Final Fantasy IX

Still frustrated by Citizen Sleeper 2 but with my video game itch still unscratched, I remembered that I bought a remastered edition of Final Fantasy IX on Steam several years ago. Seeing as I remember the characters so fondly but the story has mostly faded from my memory, AND the fact that my aging relic of a laptop is more than capable of playing it, I installed it and put well over 4 hours into my save file before grudgingly going to bed far too late last night.

Playing this game, and also staying up irresponsibly late, brought back so many good memories and felt like a real return to my childhood. My memory of Zidane being my favorite protagonist of any Final Fantasy entry that I've played held up, plus the steampunk vibes—perfection.

Anyway…

As of writing this, I’ve only skimmed today’s newsletter from 1440 so I don’t yet have a good idea what the week ahead has in store but I’m feeling fully R&R’d and ready to face it. Let’s go!

Also, if you want to follow what I’m up to, you can find all of my current social links over on my website. While the links are all there, it’s currently in the midst of a gradual revamp so please excuse the dust. Have a good week!