My time at Sandrock: The difficulty of choosing a husband

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In honor of the leap day musings about proposing (marriage).

Lately, day and night, only one thing has been on my mind. Who should I marry? The choice is so damn hard that I can't stand it. Before, I was forced to marry an architect. He was really rude to me at first, but then he fell in love with me, and I guess it was mutual...

But now I left everything old behind, and in the hope of a new life I moved to another city. Or, in the name of truth, this is just a tiny village.

I was immediately interested in the only scientist in the village. But unfortunately, history seems to repeat itself. This man is so full of himself and his intellect, and he is only interested in being a scientist, i.e. his work. But when I hinted and flirted with him enough, he took on a completely new study subject for himself, social relationships and love.

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Then he wanted me to teach him how to dance, and something literally electric happened between us. This man's social awkwardness and nerdiness have made me fall in love with him, and now I found myself liking his looks as well. Slender body, dark hair and glasses... He just happens to have all the things that attract me.

This man somehow became my lover mid-sentence, and external forces immediately began pressuring me to buy an engagement ring and propose to him. I'm sorry, but I'm an old-fashioned woman, and I want a man to propose to me, not the other way around. That's probably why I'll never get married again, at least not to this scientist. After all, that architect proposed to me himself, and it was a really romantic and wonderful proposal. Rose petals and candles in the shape of a heart on the beach... Right on the eve of leap day, this scientist broke my heart by saying that he hopes he was more than just my boyfriend... still that proposal is not coming, and I guess I have to stop believing in miracles.

But during all this, I had started receiving anonymous letters from a secret admirer who thinks that I'm "cool". He also started sending me gifts, and he even thinks that I would be a better deputy than... a cat... that I made a hat for... and shoes. My secret admirer thinks I would look better in that hat! This admirer seems to admire everything I do for the city.

Then it happened. One morning I came out of my one room house and a man was just putting a letter in my mailbox. So my secret admirer was caught in the act... and he turned out to be a man from the city's police force, who I hadn't paid any attention to before.

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This man was so shocked of being caught that he said he would go home and hide in the closet. But he didn't do that. I saw him later in town and he was talking to me normally. But when I went to his house, I found him in his closet. Strange... I also found his last letter, the one he was delivering to me. In it, he asked me to be his best friend. Of course I agreed to his request, but I immediately regretted it. I knew he would have wanted something more, and suddenly I found myself wanting that too…

Since that fateful day, I've done my best to stay on good terms with this now not-so-secret admirer of mine. Hoping that maybe one day I would dare to propose something to him... Something that could have happened a long time ago, if I hadn't been so startled by his sudden revelation.

Later I confessed my love for him, and luckily he said that he likes me too. Then I went on a date with him. He's such a boring guy, his favorite hobby is rocks. You read that right, rocks. I think I'd break his heart if I revealed that stones don't interest me at all.

Even earlier, a journalist arrived in the city to write stories about a criminal terrorizing the city, and it was revealed that this journalist is also a children's author. I was immediately interested in this man, because I myself like to write all kinds of shit. Maybe we could have something in common? But our relationship hasn't quite progressed as expected, and I've noticed that he's boring, and he's even blonde. Yes, that architect was also blonde, but like I said, it was a forced relationship. And then this newspaper boy had the audacity to reject me. He said he wants to think about this a little more. Aren't I irresistible to everyone?! The more I get to know this guy, the more I realize that we have nothing in common after all. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and talks all the time about butlers and bodyguards...!! So we come from completely different worlds.

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It should also be mentioned that the only doctor in town is a really strange guy. He barely speaks at all, and dabbles in some dubious naturopathy. More vocal than the doctor is always his... pet bird. Maybe one day the doctor will open up to me. Only and only for me... Patience just doesn't happen to be one of my virtues. I've heard rumors that he has had a really traumatic past.

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And then there's the criminal terrorizing the town. I've only seen him once, and that's when our eyes met. But luckily, bad boys have never interested me. Still, I've heard interesting things about him... and claims that he's not really a bad guy, or even a criminal. I am quite confused whether to believe the news or not? Maybe our paths will meet someday...

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But I'm starting to realize that I'm not ready for marriage. I still want to explore my options. Even so, I dress appropriately every day. I'm ready when some man is finally ready to propose to me!!

All this in the game My time at Sandrock.

Killer Klowns game gets release date

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game is an upcoming asymmetrical multiplayer horror game by IllFonic, based on a movie of the same name. Now the release date has been revelead, it's June 4, 2024.

 

 

At the same time the video game became available for pre-order from Steam, Playstation and Xbox stores. If you pre-order you get early access, some cosmetic skins, and even one klown character (Slim) as a bonus. The price for the base game is $39.99, and digital deluxe edition is $59.99.

Also a gameplay trailer for the game was released.

 

Will we finally get an asymmetrical multiplayer game which can compete with Friday the 13th: The Game? Other similar games, such as Dead by Daylight, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Evil Dead: The Game, simply don't have the fun and variety of F13. 

I personally have lost all hope that there ever will be as good multiplayer game as Friday has been. But unfortunately F13 game will cease to exist at the end of 2024, so there would be room for a good replacement.

I'm not familiar with the Killer Klowns movie, but of course that wouldn't stop me from enjoying the game. Heck, I haven't even seen much of the Friday movies, and I still love that game to bits.

But Killer Klowns lost me at 3vs7... In F13 you have the best chances of survival because it's 1vs7(8). In all the other similar games there are less survivors, and even more killers. And I say no thank you to them.

I know some people just want to kill, and want the games to favor the killer(s) heavily. So that escaping and survival is rare. But that's not my cup of tea.

Borderlands movie: First trailer

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Borderlands is an upcoming film by Lionsgate, and its release date is August 9, 2024.

The movie's cast includes Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Kevin Hart as Roland, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, Florian Munteanu as Krieg, Gina Gershon as Mad Moxxi, Steven Boyer as Scooter, Ryann Redmond as Ellie, Benjamin Byron Davis as Marcus, Charles Babalola as Hammerlock, and Jack Black as the world famous wiseass robot Claptrap.

But where is Handsome Jack?

Here's the movie's official poster.

 

 

I have been a big fan of the Borderlands games since the first one. I don't even normally like first person shooters, but the Borderlands games are great fun in co-op. I wouldn't even play them solo.

But Borderlands 3 was a big disappointment. We pre-ordered it, and after that experience decided never to pre-order a game again. Borderlands 3 was missing vertical split screen at launch, and we had to wait a year (!!) to play it.

Currently we are playing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, and luckily it has been much more fun than the previous title in the series.

My time at Portia: Late gameplay tips

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As I told before I became heavely addicted to My time at Portia. Here are some stories from my playthrough, and some tips about what items are needed late in the game's main story.

The best days are when I find shit. A lot of animal feces. You can't buy, order or grow it, you have to find it yourself. And it takes a lot of crap to make fertilizer. And you need lot of fertilizer because you have to have crystal trees, even though crystal is needed in exactly one mission in the whole game. You also need nitre trees. Cotton. Rainbow flowers for pigments, you need a lot of them at one stage and even at the very end, a light 100 pcs. Giant plants for the autumn festival. 

You need wheat (!) for the horse. At one point I started to wonder why the horse's statistics showed a sad face and 100 percent hunger. I read horses like to eat mostly wheat and pumpkin. Well, the wheat didn't help, the hunger is still and always 100% (or maybe it's 100% full?). Fortunately, it doesn't matter, in Portia, for example, horses and children have not been developed. Children never grow up and you can never get rid of them, so it's not worth getting them.

 

How many ways has Portia tried to make me to stop playing it:


1. I was moving boxes from the yard inside and I put them in my inventory but the inventory was full. Normally, things that don't fit in your backpack fall to the ground and you can pick them up, even several days later. Now the boxes and the things they contained disappeared completely, they were nowhere to be found. In the end, I had to load an earlier save... or accept the loss of all the important stuff. I read online that this is how you get rid of things permanently in this game. So beware...

 

2. And then a new attempt at moving the boxes inside. When I had the box in my hands and came inside the house and my husband Gust happened to want to give me money right then, the box and the things in it disappeared forever. I tried to play the same morning many times, and always the same result. If the busband wants to give money, the box in my hands and its contents disappear. In the end, when moving the boxes, I had to make sure that Gust was not at home.

 

3. Then I was just working on my yard when I suddenly fell into the void. A terribly traumatizing experience. There were two options: to wait until the night, but to lose the (work) hours of the rest of the day. Or load up a save and play the day again. I chose the first option.

 

 

4. And then I went to the final boss unprepared and ran out of stamina and couldn't get any more of it. In earlier fights in the game, it hadn't mattered at all. No matter how long I kept watching the sidekicks, they didn't do any damage to the boss. So there was only one option, i.e. rage quit and the day was lost. When you know that in the first stage of the final boss you only need to reach 70% and the sidekicks can handle the rest of the stages completely by themselves... I almost reached that, but no. So don't go to the final boss unprepared like I did.

 

And then the many times when the PS5 claimed that "game access will expire in 15 minutes". Well, it didn't. Not even that one time when the game went dark and I thought that really was the end of it. Well, it was not. All this was because Portia was on Playstation plus extra.


And then I spent many days looking for a racket, because I knew I would need it in the future, and I sold all the old ones... I finally found a racket, but it was out of reach behind a floor/wall. This is a common problem in Portia's mines.

 

 

I always made sure that I had all the needed stuff ready in advance... But in the last mission of the main story (before the end credits) you have to build an airplane. Of course I had all the stuff ready and done. Except one. You need 45 pieces of carbon fiber for that mission and I think I only had 8. And you can only get carbon fiber in two ways, and both require fighting. I had already thought that after the last boss I would never have to fight again. I hate fighting.

Okay, so... you can either send the civil corps to the Ingalls mine to get that carbon fiber. But it is really expensive and requires that you first play through the levels required for the Ingalls mine. Another option is the Deepest ruin, and there if you get an S grade in the level, it is possible that there is carbon fiber in the prize box. Grade S requires you to get through the level in less than a minute. I can't really do that. But luckily you can buy drugs in the Deepest ruin. When you buy a cola, you get an S grade even if it takes more than two minutes. I really wouldn't have wanted stressful fights right then... but who could wait for a better time?

So, just when I was desperately trying to save money for Syphilis (Phyllis), too much money was spent on carbon fiber. Syphilis is an expensive woman, but because of the trophies, she is mandatory. I wouldn't have wanted to give up Gust, but fortunately you can... save the game, and then re-load. In other words, the second divorce was just a bad dream. When I finally made Syphilis' dream come true, I gave her a gift... thank you and goodbye without saving.

Is it a sign of addiction if I keep playing the game even after getting the platinum? But I had to, because the main story missions continue even after that. With the money I saved from Syphilis, I bought a barn where I could finally place the cows that had been waiting in the storage box for a very long time. And I bought some lambs too. They are so cute I can't stand it (and they produce that precious shit!).

 

 

As the main story was threateningly coming to an end, the lack of things to do started to feel bad, so it was time to have a child. During pregnancy, health and stamina are 30% lower than normal, so it's not really worth it if there are going to be fights.

 

 

 

What is a suitable name for Diarrhea's child? At least Poop.

 

 

If the child is left unfed and uncared for, the only consequence is that the relationship with the child suffers. That is, social workers do not take the child away like in the Sims.

 

The main story of the game ends with building of a ship and the epic I'm on a boat moment. It's nice that after many years, my husband thinks this way about me. ("Well, thanks for all your hard work over the years. I suppose I could say... in some regard... I have a lot of respect for you.")

My time at Portia gameplay videos:

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1

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3 (ending and end credits)

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I have started to play Portia's sequel My time at Sandrock, and made a first blog post about that game's Macchiato the cat. But more posts of Sandrock will follow...

PS5 controller not charging?

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First of all, PS5 controllers suck. After using the original white PS5 controllers for just a couple of years they started drifting, and their battery lasts less and less time. In the end it could be that a full charge, 3 bars, would last for like a half an hour.

PS5 controllers are so much worse than PS3 and PS4 controllers. It's almost like these PS5 controllers were deliberately made to last less time. So that people would buy more controllers...

So we had to buy new controllers. Now we have 5 (!!) of them: a purple, pink and black, and those two white ones.

 

 

But then a new problem began. The controller would seemingly charge itself, the light flashing and all. But after many hours of "charging" the battery could still be totally empty.

Since we have 5 controllers we knew that the problem was not the controller itself. We thought the cable could be broken.

But then I read online about people having this same problem and even buying a new cable, and still the problem was not fixed.

But then the controllers wouldn't charge even while plugged in with another device, instead of a PS5. So maybe it's the cable after all? 

So we did buy a new cable, and it did fix the problem!

We noticed that in the old cable the connection part of the controller and the cable was a bit loose, compared to the new one where it's much firmer. That would explain why the controllers would sometimes charge, and sometimes not.

 

 

This problem made me very anxious because I desperately want to play, especially my favorite game, and with my set up I can't play with the cable plugged in.

Happy Valentine's day from Cats in games!

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Fun fact: In Finland it's called "friend's day".

Today is the release date of Tomb Raider I–III Remastered, in honor of Lara Croft's birthday. The remaster is coming to all the current consoles and PC, and only digitally. It has massive amount of trophies, 255. And it seems that even the old cheats are still working, but they might void the trophies.

Tomb Raider 2 was the first TR-game I ever played, and I loved it. So I'm gonna get this remaster at some point, when the price is low enough.

 

When it comes to my previous blog post about My time at Sandrock's Macchiato the cat, this image below made by AI presents that mob boss cat who loves guns perfectly, don't you think?

Cats, games and guns... Is there a game like this yet? Like GTA, but with cats? Open world, modern setting?

Frankly I have been developing a game idea of my own, as part of the studies at Introduction to Video Games Creation. Maybe I shouldn't reveal too much, somebody might steal the idea? Just kidding.

In my game the playable character is a white, long haired cat named Fluffy. In real life I do have a white cat, named Olivia, but she doesn't have long hair, although her father is a Norwegian Forest cat.  

In the game evil humans kidnap poor Fluffy's colorful kittens, and she must try to get them back. I'm not even sure of the genre yet. I'm thinking platformer, but I don't like many platformers, mainly because they are often too difficult. I like easy games.

 

Hopefully you are staying safe, and not catching a deadly and literally heartbreaking virus called Covid.

So lets pet our cats and play some great games!

In honor of this very special day I will be playing my favorite game of all time, Friday the 13th: The Game. After all, it's the last Valentine's day ever when it's possible to play F13. And sadly that game coming to an end makes me terrified... I want to continue playing it forever!

 

The images in this blog post were made by Stable Diffusion.

My time at Sandrock: The mystery of Macchiato the cat

There are many animal residents in My time at Sandrock, and some of them you can adopt as pets.

There are three cats in the game, but only two of them can become pets. One of them is a ginger cat named Macchiato.

 

 

As I was trying to find out which gifts Macchiato likes, something really piqued my interest, and quite frankly made me want to laugh.

Among the gifts that Macchiato the cat loves are:

 

• vintage shotgun
• vintage assault rifle
• vintage pistol

 

So what gives?! A cat who loves, wants, and apparently needs guns? What is he gonna do with them? Scary and funny at the same time. 

 

 

Then I scrolled down on the wiki page, and read some trivia.

Macchiato the cat also appears in another game, called Party animals. In that game Macchiato is a... mob boss!

That explains it?

So is the story canon that now Macchiato has retired from his job as a mob boss, and is living his golden years peacefully in Sandrock?

But something never dies, like his love for guns?

Nonetheless this attention to detail is hilarious.

 

 

And apparently I should get my hands on Party animals. But the game hasn't been released on PS4/PS5. At least not yet, and I don't know if it ever will be.

Review: My time at Portia (PS5)

In the game My time at Portia in the beginning you move to a village, and of course you inherit some land and a workshop with the purpose of doing something, and of course you should make friends with the villagers and marry one of them. So it's a very simple game? No it is NOT.


I never would have believed...


*that I would get totally addicted to this game

*for the game to be so complicated, you have to do many things at the same time

*that it has so many cute animals (for example, those colorful llamas jump around happily and you have to murder them in cold blood)

*that it would be so stressful, my neck and head etc. hurt badly while playing and at worst my hand went numb. In the end, I had to stop (for a day. I took a day off and it was difficult, because of my addiction). Should I play something more relaxing, like RE4 Remake? lol (I guess there is no such thing as easy enough game for me when even Spirit of The North also caused me to rage quit)

 

My time at Portia doesn't hold the player's hand, and it doesn't suit me. When you once again have to look on the internet how to get a new necessary ingredient when the game doesn't tell you about it in any way... without the instructions on the internet, I couldn't have played this game.

 

 

The best thing about the game is of course that you can get a cat! Pinky is a pink and fat cat that I bribed with fish every day for over a month before she finally agreed to be mine.

 

 

 

Building social relationships in the game is painfully slow, even if you gift people with their favorite stuff every damn day.

 

 

The worst moment was when I had two time-limited tasks that required things I didn't have yet. Being an idiot, I took the Commerce Guild task to make 5 sprinklers. They require valves, which the internet claimed to be found in Abandoned mine #2, where I dug in vain for a week (!). In the end I went to the sewage plant, the end boss of the first level always drops 2 valves. I had to go there on four different days, because the first time I got to the boss, I ran out of stamina. It was stressful to have to kill the boss many times when just beating him wasn't enough, you also have to dodge. And I don't normally bother to dodge in games...

And at the same time there was another task, that required stuff which I finally finished one night. I knew that when I woke up in the morning, I have less than 2 hours to find the guy to whom I have to return the stuff. On the first attempt, the guy did not agree to accept the goods and the mission failed. I loaded the day and realized that I had the wrong kind of glass with me the first time. In the end it worked, but it was close. I worked so hard and for so long on those missions that it would have been a bit of a bummer if the time had run out, and damn close it was.

 

There are many bachelors in the game to choose who to marry, but only  for two of them you get trophies. One woman and one man. It's interesting to think about who I would have chosen if trophy hadn't "forced" me to marry Gust. At least not him, that's for sure. In order to get together with Gust, I gifted him daily with bloody umbrellas, they require the spikes of certain animals to make them. Have Portians never heard of vegan umbrellas?!

 

I had to wait a long time for the proposal. When I thought it would finally happen, I still had to take care of the future groom's pig for six days.

 

There would have been really funny answer options when refusing the proposal.

 

Then the wonderful day came and I finally got married!!1 For some reason, the groom's doppelganger was a guest at the wedding.

 

It was a bit sad when at the end of the month/year the situation was that I lost to Higgins only by a small margin.

 

 

LUCKILY I realized that I can reload that last day of the year again. I had messed up and didn't notice that there were tasks available on the wall even though it was the weekend. So I played the day again, and the victory and the trophy were mine!

 

 

(and as a bonus I got [unsaved of course] the divorce trophy, although it was hard to get enough money for the divorce when the merchants started saying they couldn't afford to buy more of my stuff. but it was nice to find out the next morning that the divorce was just a bad dream lol [Gust even dared to say that he knew this wouldn't last])

 

 

It was good to stop playing the game with that win and trophy. I had already decided that I would quit after a certain story mission, which I worked hard for in advance, so that Higgins wouldn't have time to steal any commissions. I have had enough of this health-destroying stressful game!

 

According to reviews My Time at Portia is a relaxing game? WTF? I so disagree with those reviews: How can you rest up your brain when you constantly have to think about how to get this, this and that? When to get that one thing you have to get and make many others? What the hell is this shit about a slowpace game? All the time you are terribly busy, especially when a large part of the missions have a time limit. Surely a stressed soul can't rest, it just gets more stressed!! Ugh, and by the way, it's a shame to know that it's a Chinese game.

 

 

Next, I started playing the original Resident Evil 4 (a poor person can't afford the remake), with chicago typewriter. Killing Spaniards was a much more relaxing activity than playing Portia... until I died of novistadors. I hate them so much.