@grissallia@aus.social
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grissallia

@grissallia@aus.social

I’m just a girl, standing in front of the internet, asking it to love her.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

grissallia, to random
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I am so screwed today.

grissallia,
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Is this real life? Am I dead?

jpm, to random
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This may be the final ever upgrade for ol’faithful Sandy Bridge rig. 16GB isn’t cutting it anymore, and for $50 delivered I won’t be too mad if it doesn’t work.

grissallia,
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@decryption @jpm Sure, but it has a dragon on it!

grissallia, to random
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AusPost and I have significantly different ideas of the definition of the word "today".

grissallia, to random
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OK, so some mob called "Xplore Wealth" have added me to their cold call list, and completely refuse to take me off.

I've had zero luck with ACMA and making complaints.

Hung up on them today, and they just started autodialling me repeatedly.

They have a Melbourne and Sydney number, and the Melbourne number just has me on hold.

How do I stop them?

grissallia, to random
@grissallia@aus.social avatar

Was supposed to have yesterday off, but I was required for a critical task, because no-one else was available.

So I was going to have today off instead.

However, due to a key system not working yesterday (due to what turned out to be a configuration error by a colleague), I had to work today as well.

So my day off was pushed off until tomorrow.

However, due to a client error, I had to work late so the job could be finished without necessitating my involvement, and just knocked off at 11:15pm

Turns out that the client has misconfigured their network, and now I have to work tomorrow, to finish the job that couldn't be completed today because of the misconfiguration.

SO GOOD!

grissallia, to random
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OK, so. My kids have a habit of opening bags of corn chips, and then they go stale.

Today it occurred to me, while staring into yet another partially full bag of stale corn chips: "Maybe I could put them in the for a few minutes?"

Yes. Yes you can. Maybe this one of those obvious things that everyone knows about and I'd just missed the memo, but in case not...

grissallia, to random
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"I wonder how many logins I need to update for my email address?"

[Search for birthname email address in 1Password]

Right.

grissallia,
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@luciedigitalni @friendswaffleswork

Hmmm... this intrigues me.

grissallia, to trans
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So... on Thursday I did a thing.

grissallia,
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@melissabeartrix pretty simple, just expensive. Log in, fill in a form, provide ID, discover that the Certified Copy of my birth certificate that I got in 1989 isn't actually considered a birth certificate... O_o

grissallia, to random
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So, it's the first of January again, and it's time to lay out my plans for my

It's going to come in two parts this year, because it's touching on a sensitive topic, so some of the posts will have a CW, and some hashtags to filter them.

Top level is . Someone asked if they could join in on a daily project, and I said sure, that I'd use a top-level hashtag for anyone who wants to join in at a "daily project" level, but doesn't want to join in the actual project. Feel free to use this one in your daily project posts. I could even make a list, if you want!

Project level is . It's just a daily check-in for accountability on getting healthier, and for the folks who want the accountability thing on this in particular, and asked if they could join in.

I'll be using two separate hashtags to separate the personal posts. The second ones will also get a CW.

The first will be my daily check-in , with two goals:

  • Drink 2L of water per day, in addition to other liquids. I don't drink enough water. I have a notated drink bottle which will at least let me know how far I got each day.

  • A minimum of Five minutes of exercise six days a week, with Sunday as a "rest" day, increasing by five minutes per day each month, with a goal of doing a minimum of 60 minutes of exercise per day by December.

I'm really trying hard not to overcomplicate this, because I don't want to give myself an extra burden by committing to lengthy exercise reviews, but I might make some comments.

The second will come with a CW and be hashtagged with . Will be at least monthly, and it will be about weight loss. The hashtag & CW are for the folks for whom this is a triggering subject, so they can mute it. I'll explain more in a separate post.

Gonna unpin my old project post, and pin this one, and off we go again.

grissallia,
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January 26, 2025 - Day 26 - Check In
Total Check Ins: 26

Water goal: 2L
Intake: 750ml

Exercise goal: 5m
Actual: 6m

Exercise: Walking
Location: Outdoors

Distance: 0.56km
Pace: 11'12"/km
Steps: n/a

Kcal burned: 61

HR (avg): 116BPM

Comments:
4 hours sleep two nights in a row is rough, and today was a barely functional day, but got the walk in.

grissallia,
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January 27, 2025 - Day 27 - Check In
Total Check Ins: 27

Water goal: 2L
Intake: 1L

Exercise goal: 5m
Actual: 0m

Exercise: n/a
Location: n/a

Distance: n/a
Pace: n/a
Steps: n/a

Kcal burned: n/a

HR (avg): n/a

Comments:
Writing this on the following day; in the back of my head, the thing I've been worried about is what would happen when I got sick. It feels like I do that a fair bit, with a penchant for colds and other respiratory games.

Yesterday afternoon, I started sneezing, then coughing, then my eyes turned red, and it's either some kind of allergy, or I'm coming down with something. Again.

Within an hour or so, I'd crashed out in bed for a couple of hours. Then got up again around 8:30pm. I did not manage to get my "5 minutes" in.

I'm feeling about 70% this morning, and not sure whether to get out and push myself, or just rest. If it's just allergies, then rest isn't going to do much, but if it's my body teetering on the edge of another URTI, pushing myself could end badly.

grissallia, to gaming
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I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.

For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".

Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".

I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).

I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.

I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.

One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.

Unplayed games:
Trying a game again:
Going live on Twitch:

I'll hashtag these with so you can mute it if you're not interested.

grissallia,
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January 26, 2024 - Day 391 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 427

Game: Elderborn

Platform: Steam
Released: Jan 31, 2020
Installed: Jan 26, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 22m

Rating: 1 - Nope

Elderborn is a first-person Soulslike slasher melee-combat game.

The game opens with a bombastic monologue from the lead character (at least you can choose their gender), who lays out a brief history of how you got to the point of entering the locked-down city of doom, but there was nothing unique about it that grabbed me. It was just... filler.

(Sidenote: If your game supports 3440x1440 ultrawide, you need a FOV slider. Playing a first-person game through a fisheye lens is not fun.)

The graphics and design feel average. It feels like they forgot the narrative part of a Soulslike that gives you a reason to press on.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with the game is that it's just boring. Run to room. Cut down undead. Run to next room that looks like previous room. Cut down undead. Rinse and repeat.

Elderborn is:

1: Nope

grissallia,
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January 27, 2024 - Day 392 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 428

Game: Palworld

Platform: Xbox Game Pass for PC
Released: Jan 19, 2024
Installed: Jan 27, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 4.9h

Rating: 4 - Good

Palworld is a third-person tree-punching survival game with a new game mechanic of seeking to be sued out of existence by The Pokemon Company.

If you haven't heard of the game that sold 8 million copies in a week on Steam, and is currently sitting at #2 behind PUBG on the Steam chart for record number of concurrent players, the elevator pitch for Palworld is "Pokemon with guns"

I didn't expect it to be quite so literal.

I'd read a piece about survival games by Zack Zwiezen a few days ago, in which he referred to them as "tree punchers" (which I've stolen from him), and he touched on Palworld in the review; so I had no intention of buying it.

However, after rebooting my PC yesterday, I found myself staring at the Xbox app and an install button for Palworld via Game Pass, which meant I didn't need to buy it, and the die was cast.

The gameplay loop is certainly addictive; I can understand why so many folks are playing it.

It starts out like most survival games; wake up in a random location with no idea how you got there, and start punching trees. It's the same gathering-and-crafting loop we've been doing since Minecraft (and probably even before).

Then there's the Pokemon... sorry, "Pals". I'm not a Nintendo girl. I didn't have any Nintendo stuff growing up, and the first Nintendo console I owned was the N64 I bought for our kids for Christmas 2000 (Christmas 2000 sounds like an awesome B-grade movie).

My first encounter with Pokemon was Pokemon GO. I lack the encyclopaedic memory of all the different Pokemon I encountered in PoGo, but upon encountering -and killing- Pals in Palword, they were definitely giving off Pokemon vibes.

You can also collect the Pals, by attacking them with a weapon until they're weakened enough to capture in a Pokeball... erm, Palsphere.

Once captured, you can put them to work in your base, or, uhh... butcher the cute little PokePals, to feed the other PokePals working in your base.

Best not to think too deeply about a game that is also apparently survival horror.

The Pokemon vibes ceased to be vibes and became "you're going to get sued for IP infringement" when I encountered Gumoss.

Gumoss is a grass-type Pal (yes, they've snarfed the 'type' concept too), which feels unarguably like Ditto in an acorn cap.

If I, with my limited recall of Pokemon, can recognise this, I've no doubt the Pokemon fans calling Pocket Pair out are on the money, and it makes sense that the notoriously laid-back-and-not-at-all-protective-of-their-IP, The Pokemon Company, are "investigating".

Which is primarily why I didn't buy it on Steam; I don't want to lose A$44 when they get sued out of existence for IP infringement.

Still, as a game, Palworld is:

4: Good

grissallia,
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January 28, 2024 - Day 393 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 429

Game: Etherborn

Platform: Steam
Released: Jul 19, 2019
Installed: Jan 21, 2024
Unplayed: 7d
Playtime: 28m

Rating: 2 - Meh

Etherborn is a third-person 3D platform puzzle game that seems to have been designed on the principle "What if we remade Monument Valley without understanding what made it tick, and then adding a vaguely philosophical voiceover?"

Unfortunately, it means that Etherborn feels like a knock-off version of Monument Valley, just somewhat annoying.

The same kind of 3D puzzles, now with the added ability to fall off the structure, and get placed right back where you were.

A disembodied voice speaking over the top of the initial level, then at the end of the next level doesn't really add anything to the game, other than making you wait until it finishes speaking. What it has to say seems to have little to do with the actual game.

While you can navigate from any surface to any other surface that is joined by a curve, sometimes you'll jump and suddenly find yourself plummeting to your doom.

The follow camera wanders around all over the place, with some minor adjustments possible with the right thumbstick, often leading to falling to my death because of the angle of view.

More than once I found the avatar obscured from view by parts of the level itself, which just added to the frustration.

I played through the intro level, then the first level, and after that I saved and quit, because it just felt like a chore.

Etherborn is just:

2: Meh

grissallia,
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January 29, 2024 - Day 394 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 430

Game: The Wild Eight

Platform: Steam
Released: Oct 4, 2019
Installed: Jan 29, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 19m

Rating: 3 - OK

The Wild Eight is a top-down/isometric tree-puncher survival game set in the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash.

I don't have a lot to add. The inventory management is a little bit frustrating, but if you've played one survival game, you've played most of them.

The Wild Eight is barely:

3: OK

grissallia,
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January 30, 2024 - Day 395 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 431

Game: Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Platform: Steam
Released: Nov 28, 2012
Installed: Jan 30, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 15m

Rating: 2 - Meh...?

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is a remastered version of the original Baldur's Gate released on Dec 21, 1998. It's an isometric RPG, and I've made a terrible mistake.

The original purpose of this little project was to play through games that were in my unredeemed keys spreadsheet, or already installed in Steam, which I've stuck to most of the time.

I've been enjoying BG3, and last night got an email for a Fanatical Star Deal for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition.

Only A$5.98? Download, installed, start playing after knocking off at 11:30pm.

Here's the thing: I know Baldur's Gate is considered to be a classic RPG.

Even though The Enhanced Edition runs natively on a 3440x1440 resolution monitor, it's not in a good way. The UI, which was originally designed to sit close to the centre of the screen, is now sitting out at the very edges of the monitor, with the play area a relatively small area in the middle of the screen, dwarfed by two huge black voids on either side. Then the UI.

If that wasn't enough, after 15 minutes of playtime, I was still in the tutorial. I hadn't skipped it, and it's good thing I hadn't, because the idea of pausing mid-battle and making moves is considerably different to both BG3, and any other game I recall.

At the end of the day (not a cliche, literally), after more than twelve work hours, I don't think I was in the right mindset to either take the game in, or to work around the technical limitations.

With that said, I'm not sure it will grab me, but I've put it into the "replay" category to give it a second chance.

For now, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is a bit:

2: Meh

grissallia,
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January 31, 2024 - Day 396 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 432

Game: Cyber Hook

Platform: Steam
Released: Sep 25, 2020
Installed: Jan 31, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 17m

Rating: 2 - Meh

Cyber Hook is a retrowave-themed first-person parkour-with-grappling-hook 3D platformer.

Another game pulled randomly from the spreadsheet of doom.

Love the aesthetic, found the game somewhat frustrating due to the default key assignments, and my lack of general coordination.

In Just Cause, the grapple is deployed with the right mouse button, and shooting with the left.

In Cyber Hook, this is inverted. I swapped them around, which helped, but the mechanic feels just different enough to be frustrating; I have to think instead of just reacting.

The shift key is assigned slow down time, instead of speeding things up (most games assign it to run).

Speedrunning is not really my thing, so Cyber Hook just feels a bit:

2: Meh

!

grissallia,
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February 1, 2024 - Day 397 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 433

Game: Still There

Platform: Steam
Released: Nov 21, 2019
Installed: Feb 1, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 40m

Rating: 4 - Good

Still There is a point-and-click adventure game set on a space station.

You play as an astronaut who has experienced some kind of family tragedy, and may-or-may-not be dealing with it.

It has a touch of dark humour, and it's got me intrigued so far.

Still There seems:

4: Good

grissallia,
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February 2, 2024 - Day 398 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 434

Game: Wildfire

Platform: Steam
Released: May 26, 2020
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 15m

Rating: 3 - OK

Wildfire is a 2D pixel-art stealth-oriented platformer.

Having encountered something (possibly alien), you find that your village has been torched by soldiers of the king, with the survivors taken away.

You're caught, and executed... but you survive, because the encounter has changed you in a way that has given you power over the elements.

I didn't think I'd like it, but Wildfire is:

3: OK

grissallia,
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February 3, 2024 - Day 399 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 435

Game: Hammerting

Platform: Steam
Released: Nov 17, 2021
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 1d
Playtime: 25m

Rating: 1 - Nope

Hammerting is a 2.5D Dwarven mining colony sim.

I know this, because after 25 minutes of playing, I quit, and searched the web to find out what it was I was trying to play.

It feels like there's actually a reasonable game in there somewhere, but it didn't click with me, because of the way it introduced the game mechanics.

Hammerting starts by pausing the game during the "tutorial", and lighting up a bit of the screen with a popup that says "This does [x]". You then hit Next, and it repeats until it runs out of things to tell you. Sometimes it tells you quite a lot of things one after the other.

Presented like this, these things are abstracted away from their purpose, and with ADHD and not taking my meds on a weekend, it was a lot to try and fail to take in.

Even when I did manage to take something in, the UX was frequently inscrutable, with no system to give me any idea what I was looking at.

You start the game with three dwarves, and you can click on a button, and click on an item in the environment to get them to do something.

Click the mining button. Click on the copper ore. The dwarves mine the ore. The ore falls out of the wall.

The ore sits on the ground. The dwarves do nothing with it. It has a right click menu, but none of the options have anything to do with picking up the ore.

Then my hardy band of dwarves got attacked by a rampaging slime. They killed it in short order. Pieces of slime on the ground. They apparently have value, based on the tooltip.

No idea how to collect them.

The final straw was about 10 minutes later, when I thought I might be starting to get the hang of something, maybe, and the dwarves were attacked again by slimes.

The dwarves stood there, resolutely, being attacked.

I clicked on the attack button, and clicked the slimes.

The dwarves stood there, resolutely, being attacked.

I clicked to move the dwarves, they moved out of range of the slimes.

The slimes followed until they reached the dwarves.

The dwarves stood there, resolutely, being attacked.

One was knocked unconscious.

I quit the game in frustration.

Hammerting?

1: Nope

grissallia,
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February 4, 2024 - Day 400 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 436

Game: S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster

Platform: Steam
Released: May 23, 2019
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 2d
Playtime: 32m

Rating: 3 - OK

S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster is an isometric real-time tactics (RTT) strategy game, about a war between armies of rabbits, and pigs.

It seems the universe has a sense of humour, because my complaints about the lack of tutorial in yesterday's game were met with a 16 minute tutorial in S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster.

S.W.I.N.E. was originally released in 2001, and the remaster involved some of the original devs. It's a reasonably solid game (if somewhat basic), but it scratches a bit of an itch I wasn't aware of.

With that said, there are some rough edges to the game. Having never played the original, I'm unsure as to whether they've been left that way to maintain fidelity for fans of the original game, or if it's just some stylistic choices.

The most grating, though, is the voiceover work. Within the universe of the game (by way of spoken accents), the Rabbit army are presented as French, and the Pig army are presented as German.

The accents seem very much like someone trying to imitate the respective accents, rather than a native of those countries speaking English, and while not a gamebreaker, it does grate a little.

Overall, S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster is just:

3: OK

grissallia,
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February 5, 2024 - Day 401 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 437

Game: Kill It With Fire

Platform: Steam
Released: Aug 14, 2020
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 3d
Playtime: 23m

Rating: 3 - OK

Kill It With Fire is a first-person action game about about killing spiders with as much collateral damage as possible.

I'm mildly arachnophobic, and it grew on me. It also has a VR mode, and I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for, or could cope with that.

Kill It With Fire is:

3: OK

grissallia,
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February 6, 2024 - Day 402 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 438

Game: Paradise Killer

Platform: Steam
Released: Sep 5, 2020
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 4d
Playtime: 21m

Rating: 4 - Good?

Paradise Killer is a first person open world detective mystery visual novel... thing?

It's really quite unique, with a kind-of vaporwave-ish aesthetic and in the 20 minutes I spent with it, it left me intrigued.

Paraduse Killer is so out of the box that I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's:

4: Good?

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