Who's a Good Boy?

I am not as much of a video gamer as I appear. I know all the jokes, but I rarely actually play the games. I'm not much of a fan of MMO's or RPG's unless its a JRPG. I have fallen in love with Pokemon since I bought my Switch and got the Pokeball to go with it and I can probably kick your ass Zuma's revenge. I fell in love with Terreria for a while, but as with everything, I eventually put it aside. 

Which is why when one of my friends offered me a free copy of Don't Starve, I originally declined. He'd told me about the game, but I couldn't imagine it being fun, and even if it was, I didn't want him to essentially waste a free game coupon on me. Still, later that year there was a sale and I ended up picking up a copy. 

That was a few years back, but I now have nearly a thousand hours between Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together. I went out of my way to figure out how to install mods onto my games so that I could add characters to the line up. Its the one game that I go back to every four or five months and then play into oblivion until I just can't do it anymore. 

And they released a new character yesterday (Thursday, March 28). 

I was excited as hell for it when I found out on Tuesday, but waking up with a sore throat, and aching muscles and feeling like I'm suffering real-life lag, I didn't even bother to wait and picked up the new character as soon as I could. 

This Good Boy is Wortox, wearing a set of gold bracelets that I received from one of the treasure boxes in the game. He is adorable and looks like a demonic puppy, which I find adorable. He eats the souls of the dead and uses them to do things like teleport short distances away. He's got pretty good health, but it's still going to take me a while to get used to playing him. 

While I was buying him (you can purchase him using in-game points too, but there was no way I was going to wait that long to play him), I also picked up all of his skins and the fire skins for Willow and Wendi while I was at it. I can't wait to try playing them again either, now. The picture just below is of my favourite skin of his, the Uncorrupted. 

So, yeah... expect to see me a bit less over the next few days, while I play this Good Boy for a while and try to not starve (though honestly, at this point, its always the big fights that end up killing me). What video games do you love playing? Do you know how many hours you've actually played them? 

Week Three and a Character Shakedown

          I had the best of intentions. Really. I meant to post last week.

          Then Klei, apparently not knowing that November is supposed to be essentially ignored by the world, opened its beta release to its newest DLC for Don't Starve. Hamlet is a Don't Starve world where the pigs have a civilization, but the rest of the world is a terrifying array of deadly everything.  I grabbed it and have already lost probably 20 hours or more to it at this point. It helps that it basically starts the game by saying, "Yo, you, the one playing this game. Yeah, You. So this edition is essentially Don't Starve-Hardcore Mode. If you're still starving to death within days in the regular game, you might want to play that mode a bit more before playing here."

          It does not disappoint. I can get to 15 days or so, but the last time two times the Thunderbird has come for me, I've died. Once because I was in the pig settlement and on my last few points of sanity... I think a nightmare got me before he could land that time. The second time I was in a battle with some houseplants that wanted to eat me and they got me just as the bird arrived. I am loving figuring out the world though. Wait until after Nanowrimo, but please pick up this game when its officially released on December 6th.

          As for my Nanowrimo, its going. I had a really tough time getting started. After 8.5k I finally figured out where I should be starting the story. Fortunately, those words weren't wasted because its Nano and they still count towards my total. I have stayed ahead of the game pretty much all month. I'm about 7k ahead of where I should be, giving me about 32k of words that actually further my plot. Unfortunately, at that point, I got stuck and my characters started falling into a bit of depression on me. 

          To get past that, I decided to talk to my husband and take an evening off from actual writing to do some planning (also, for those of you asking, yes, those words count towards Nanowrimo too. If it's written for the story during November it counts. Period.). I started by writing a kick-my-characters-in-the-ass paragraph. It was full of dire warnings and general bitching, which was not only cathartic but useful and funny as hell. Let me know if you want me to share that here. I don't think it has any secrets for the books in it, and you guys might find it hilarious. Anyways, from there I spent about 1300 words or so figuring out where all of the characters were going. Basic stuff; what is your motivation, where does it have a pivotal change and who's with you when it does? Why is that a pivotal change and what did the villain do to you to get you there?

          Surprisingly, this is working for me. 

          Here's a reminder that my poignant short story, Fated has been released and is available, pretty much wherever you buy your ebooks from. Check the links below. And please remember to leave a review about it and give it a star-rating, if nothing else. Those really help my book to get seen by more people. 

          Finally, I'm going to end here and put up a fair warning, that I think my next blog is going to be an art one... Maybe talking about Inktober, but certainly talking about my first Paletteful Packs subscription box. Keep an eye out for it!

Fated on ibook
Fated on Android
Fated on Kobo