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Welcome back to Streaming with Sqrlmog, where my Head, Heart, Guts and Inner Child engage in robust discourse over something I've watched off the Internet recently. As usual, BIG SPOILERS throughout.

First off, however, there's something we haven't done in the last several episodes. I figure maybe we should do a Meet The Team thing, y'know. Everybody go 'round in a circle and introduce yourselves.
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Inner Child: Actually, now that I mention my personal timespan of expertise and all... can I watch a movie that came out in, like, the last 30 years or something? Like the last thing was from the 1940s, I'm starting to feel really old for a child! Maybe a good old "Disney Princess" sort of film? We haven't done one of those yet.

Head: [ponders]
Head: [does math]
Head: [opens wiki]
Head: [glasses gleam]

Guts: Ooh, that's concerning.

Inner Child: Wait, when did you learn how to do mat--

Head: REJOICE! I've figured out what to watch tonight!

Anastasia
1997
Have I seen this before? .... maybe? I remember the songs, but not the film.
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Welcome back to Streaming with Sqrlmog, where my Head, Heart, Guts and Inner Child engage in robust discourse over something I've watched off the Internet recently.

All the furniture is covered in dust, the set decorations have fallen over, and I still have that price tag in a very uncomfortable place, but we're back to Streaming With Sqrlmog. X-amining with Xyzzy. Watchin' stuff because it's on Disney Plus and ... man, back in 2019 when we started this very short-lived series, I wrote that I still loved Disney in spite of what they were doin'. Today I still do as well although I'm a bit more jaded and wary about them. Everything written before the Gap Years feels distant and cold, doesn't it?

They're even MORE a monolith of faceless consumerism that extrudes Product, but it still feels comforting to go back to the Monolith Mother and suckle from its warm tap of stuff. It's a good thing I love some Disney because tonight we're doing a movie created in 1941 that's entirely Disney documenting how gosh dang cool Disney is. It's time for...

The Reluctant Dragon
1941
Have I seen this before? Yes, but only in pieces.

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One thing I'm enjoying in the WoW Legion Remix thing they're doing is that --

what? Yeah, hi, I'm alive.

-- you kind of just JUMP INTO this random expansion pack because a bunch of dragons are experimenting with alternate timelines, and everyone's like "Ah, Champion!" and the dragons inform you that you've basically quantum-leapt into a timeline where you're some grand legend of heroism because that's how everyone treats you in WoW. And then they're like, "Well, we got you some artifact superweapons to make up for you being level 10. Use these while you grow into your own legend."

And I'm like.
Okay.
I'm being told to PRETEND TO PRETEND that I'm a super-powerful world saving hero. That's actually much easier on my brain than ACTUALLY being treated as a super-powerful world saving hero.
I'm not sure what that says about me psychologically but I like the idea of stealing alternate-timeline-me's fuckin' bag and running away with it. Sorry you're in a dead timeline now, jackass, I'm gonna slap 200 bear nuts for you.

...anyway what I'm DOING is functionally the same thing I do in any MMO which is running around pushing 3 at things until they die, I die, or I decide to push 6 a while instead, but y'know. It's the fantasy of the thing.

Covid sucks.
Don't get Covid.

Used to be I'd blog avidly, but now I just want to leave this reminder of a moment for myself.

Today I have my first proper non-dental surgery, in that I'm going in for ESWL, a kidney stone treatment. 9mm kidney stone. I'm going to be sedated and everything.

I'm unsure how this will go, so I wanted to leave some kind of mark and I picked this way to do it.

Yep. That's all.

It's 1994 and I'm watching a poorly-tracked VHS tape of Ranma 1/2 from Blockbuster at a friend's house. It's a funny show. My favorite is Nabiki.
It's 2004 and I'm watching season 1 of Ranma 1/2 on DVD while talking about it on furry IRC. I'm starting to wonder if I should make a girl version of my character.
It's 2024 and I'm watching a pirated yoink of a new version of Ranma 1/2 with a lover on Discord screen-share. We're both trans.

Time and gender are fake ideas.

So I'm back on the Guild Wars 2, somehow. I don't know. These things just happen to people. I don't question it anymore.

I'm trying the "World Vs World" PVP mode because it has interesting looking armor and I'd like some. So me not really knowing what to do, I pick the blue team because it's called the Moogooloos and set about free-roaming aimlessly. Eventually I find some dude and decide safety in numbers, so I follow him. We engage in the time-honored ritual of jumping up and down at each other to acknowledge one's presence, so I know it's okay to follow them.
We bump into some red people, shoot them a while, win.
Run around a lot.
Eventually he stops.
I stop.
He dismounts. I don't have a mount.
We sneak carefully up a hill and around a corner of a wall.
We approach a control point. I go into sniper mode, he pulls out a couple axes.
We rush the point.

Nothing happens.
"hold on." he types in chat. "this is our camp."
"in my defense" he continues, "I am colorblind."

[story ends]

EPILOGUE:
While we were laughing at that, a bunch of dudes showed up and ganked us. Thus is life in PvP.

So I never really expected to pivot to video.

Lately social media is a litany of Twitch announcements, because I'm streaming every night except Monday nights, because I'm actually enjoying and preferring being a video person. I don't know how this happened to me. When I was younger I really thought I'd be a writer for life, but I guess it happens that we become the evil in the world whenever we are not vigilant.

I've beaten like a dozen games in the time between entries. I don't feel much of an urge to keep score anymore. It used to be a way of marking that I was Truly Done with a game, giving my thoughts on that game. Now my thoughts are scattered across 6-10 two hour videos. I've said everything I need to say by the ending.

I suppose that means I might have to write about substantive things here again.

I dunno. I really don't know.

Still embittered and tired, but here's another post.

Timespinner was a pretty fun Metroidvania, where I got stuck at 99% in both timelines and so I did not 100% it which makes it a terrible game 0/10. ... I lie, it was fine, I just still cannot fathom where the last couple little bits could be. I should someday load it up with the "detect secrets" item equipped and just stroll around. Playlist.

Secret of the Old Clock ... ah, Nancy Drew my beloved. I love these games dearly and it was a delight to finally show people some of what I've been talking about in all those posts I make about the series. Playlist.

Cavern of Dreams is another N64-style collectathon in the vein of Corn Kidz, except you're a rolly little dragon. This game confused me for a while, then delighted me, and then confused me more. Lots of intricate puzzles that don't SEEM like puzzles. Very smart game, made me feel very stupid. Playlist.

Finally, En Garde! was a breezy swashbuckling game about parrying and dodging and swords and words. I finished this game after a marathon of a boss level, then loaded it up the next day to find that all my skills had fled in the night. Playlist.

It's hard for me to believe that words are worth anything anymore. I have no motivation to write, with AI looming large. It doesn't feel like it matters. Creation is no longer valuable, well-considered creative writing isn't worth a good god damn to anyone when instead you can turn on a fountain of shit and guzzle it down any time you feel like.

Here's some games I beat.

ZORK: GRAND INQUISITOR
One of the better point and clicks based on Zork, in my opinion. Really good narrator dialogue from someone who is apparently somewhat famous? I've always dearly loved this game. It wasn't my first Zork (that would be, uh, "Zork") but it is the one I think I love most in spite of some nonsensical puzzles. VOD playlist here.

ANOTHER CODE RECOLLECTION
A collection of two adventure games, one for the DS, one for the Wii, now remade for the Switch. Arc System Works worked on this! Ashley Mizuki Robins is a young girl searching for her fathers and she encounters a ghost and memories memories memories memories memories and then she gets a little older and memories memories memories. Really good in spite of my snark, some strong YA/teen-focused writing here. Loved these. Hope there's a Hotel Dusk/Last Window collection someday. Playlist here.

WILD ARMS 3
My weekend project since December. An absolute BANGER of a JRPG with some of the best music you'll find, sharp writing, lovable characters and an entire 11 chapter storybook I spent like two hours reading to chat. Holy hell, what a game. I'm excited to play the rest of this series now. Playlist here.

As you can see, you can't get rid of me, but I just... ran out of motivation to post anything here. I don't know. It's not like being a streamer is special either. It's all energy and motivation and I had none.

We'll see if it comes back.

We'll start with the playlist link.

So this is a weird and interesting one. It's very repetitive, it's messy and weird, it's full of goofy gags and it's an absolute tangled mess of navigating through airports talking to stock image JPGs of dogs.

That said it's ... oddly fun? The writing in this carries it I think. It's a surprisingly heartfelt story of your character and his fiancee, the last two humans left in a world now run by dogs. I got emotional over some of it. It's really nice stuff, very... uh, humanist. I guess.

But this is also a very silly game with a lot of jokes, and if one doesn't land just look for the next one which'll be along in three minutes. My kind of groove.

This was way better than that last thing. A moody, introspective, PS1-filtered walking game about taking photos of "anomalies". That angle doesn't go anywhere, it's just an excuse to get you looking through a camera lens and going snap.

Playlist here.

Sorry this is short, but I finished this game last week and just haven't felt wordy enough to say anything. Had to get SOMEthing up, though.

Welcome 2024, I hope this is not how you mean to go on.

Space Station Silicon Valley is an absolute gem of an idea. You're a computer chip on a station full of robot animals. Go forth and become the animals to solve puzzles and platform and complete stages.

Unfortunately, the gem is poorly cut. The platforming is painful and awkward to control, the camera is frankly bad. The puzzles are often so obtuse and so tied to the poor platforming that I was constantly saying "This can't possibly be the solution, right?" and then looking it up and either it absolutely was but it wasn't working properly, or it wasn't but the actual solution was deeply obtuse.

I lost faith and confidence in the game's ability to provide a fair puzzle rapidly, which is a bad thing when your game is mostly puzzle-solving.

On the whole I'd say this is perhaps a third of a great game. It absolutely got worse over time, the game not understanding its own weaknesses and insisting they were strengths. I didn't want to walk away as frustrated by it as I did.

As always, I streamed this and there's archives.

Well, it's the end of the year. Again.

Keeps happening.

This year I did a video and talked aimlessly for an hour but in summary:

I played 41 games (probably??) this year, up from 39 last year. But I realized as I was recapping them that I'd missed documenting all of them. This is part of my increasing laziness in doing text content, I seem to be really slacking on that. This hurts my soul a little bit but I'm very tired so I can't really protest too hard.

Either way, video streams seem to be how I express myself now. Not really where I wanted to be, or expected to be, but here I am. I love doing it and I will not stop, my goal for the year to come is basically to do everything I'm doing now but harder and more.

2023 was a year when I felt like things were finally looking up for me and the people around me. It was the least-shit year since 2020 or so.
Let's hope the upward ramp continues in 2024 I guess.

The final two games of the year are a pair of hidden object games. I've always loved these, they're absolutely junk food and the market is spammed with them but every one of them has its own way to be deeply ridiculous and I appreciate that.

Puss in Boots was like, what if you adopted a cat and that cat dragged you through a galactic portal to cat town and you have to solve all their nonsense because Puss in Boots is trying to stop Christmas from coming? It had a robust postgame which is neat. I approve of that.

Enchanted Express meanwhile was like... "Your brother has been turned into a mouse, is this awesome? Y/Y?" and of course there's no option to leave him like that, so you have to participate in the well-known Christmas tradition of boarding a train and listening to the life stories of three strangers who are also turned into animals and then you fight the narrator for freedom I guess.

Both of these were BAFFLING relics of something and I hope to play a few more hidden objects over the course of the year. The playlist is here.

Normally I'd do an end-of-year post, but I'm probably going to do a summary stream on Twitch instead.

Kenji Miyazawa was an interesting guy. He wrote poems, short stories. He taught agriculture. He played the cello. Also in this SNES walking sim/light RPG, he has an entire town worshiping him and his stories without realizing: THEY'RE IN ONE.

In Ihatovo Monogatari/The Stories of Ihatovo you're a nameless traveler from a distant land who stops by the title town and decides to hang out and collect all of a random stranger's journals because you really have nothing better going on with your life. You watch and lightly participate in several re-enactments of the author's stories. That's pretty much the game, but it felt remarkably fresh and unique. This game feels like it started the kind of genre that later RPGMaker types would delight in making. No combat, just interaction and dialog.

I -mostly- enjoyed this game, although one sour note set me on edge for the entire rest of the playthrough. Unfortunate, but what are you going to do, NOT murder a fox in cold blood because he's smarter than you? Ha ha!

fuck the gods.

Anyway I streamed this and it's on Youtube now.

We... sure are creeping up on the end of the year, huh...

D'you remember Bogo? They did a lot of webcomics, and that one game Lyle in Cube Sector? I hadn't thought of Bogo in many years, 'til Celine streamed Lyle in Cube Sector over on her channel. The way she was talking like the entire site had just fallen off the net made me search it up to see for myself that it was still online, and right on the front page was the announcement for their new game: Corn Kidz 64.

Corn Kidz 64 takes that sort of squishy hyper-exaggerated art style, combines it with absolutely precise controls and a low-resolution Aesthetic, and sends it out into the world with a main campaign that's finishable in about ten hours if you don't mind the difficulty spike larger than the Statue of Liberty that steps in right at the end.

I think this game may have given me a mild RSI and I don't really mind that.

Anyway it's dang good stuff and I had a really good time playing it, although I did not 100% it.

That's watchable on Youtube here.

We Love Katamari etc name cruft is a pretty good. It was a pretty good game when it was originally released, and it's a pretty good game now. If I have an issue with it, it's that it's so much less relaxing than the previous Katamari. Katamari 1 had nice loose timing, so you could relax and still complete goals for the level. WLK is more tightly-timed, you're going to actually fail levels a few times before you can pass them. It also includes the fucking Cowbear level, which is terrible. So it's a good sequel but a slightly worse relaxation game. That's all watchable here.

Ecoquest meanwhile was yet another trip into my misbegotten past as a Sierra enthusiast. Two sessions flew by as we "enjoyed" puns, recycled half the ocean, learned about how much humans absolutely suck, and watched a prog metal album play out between a whale and a mutant manta ray. This was a VERY educational game. Check that out here.

I'm getting really behind on these completes!

Gabriel Knight 3 was the first time I'd played through this one and I'm still kinda reeling from it. Like I honestly don't know how I feel about some of the developments towards the back half of the game. It's very ... well, I can see why the fandom has been going "AND THEN?!!?" for the last dozen years. I finished it off by reading the little teaser story at the end that hinted at GK4 and... welp, that was it. That's all the Gabe there is, until I do the 20th Anni remake of the first game. Playlist here.

Wrath of the Gods was an absolute delight. A 1994 FMV game remastered this year for HD video, playable right on the web. A really good time was had by all. Delightful death screams. Highly recommended. Playlist here.

As for Katamari... it's Katamari. Playlist here.

I'm really getting bad about keeping track of stuff. As well, my review-writing skills feel like they're withering away. A lot of my mental attention is going to the streams lately, which is why there's so many Youtube links around here anymore.

Gabriel Knight 2 is my favorite FMV adventure game ever. I still regard this as one of the best adventure games ever made, in fact. Decent puzzles, good writing, good acting, a lot of great faces... not enough werewolves, though.

Zwei II, or "The Ilvard Insurrection" as they call it in the US, is a pretty solid Falcom game. Just a game with a ton of heart and enthusiasm for the kind of dungeon crawler ARPG it is. I'm very fond of the healing system, where you eat food to heal but also to gain XP, allowing you to underlevel the game if you're doing very well at it.