random games

Astroneer got its 1.0 release yesterday. It's a game I've been looking forward to for a while, ever since it went into early access like two years ago. It's a cute space exploration/survival game with what I would say is more emphasis on exploration than survival. You have an oxygen tank and a battery built into your backpack (all the UI elements are diegetic), but you can build lines of tethers out from your base that will keep feeding you air and power, so long as you're operating within safe distance of a line, you'll be ok. There are more planets with different biomes, so there are probably other survival elements to be introduced later, but I think it's a pretty gradual ramp.

The other big thing this game does is give you a deforming tool that you can use to dig and mine for resources, and you can also use it to reshape terrain. So far the excavation mode feels better to me than the reverse, but hopefully I'll get more used to it.

You can find evidence of other astroneers scattered around your landing site and even down in caves, so there's some light story telling, I think? Plus there's references on the steam page and in the trailer to something hidden in the core of the planet and some kind of ancient relic (which is a path a lot of these kinds of games seem to lean toward).

Anyway, it's my new game to chill with and I'm happy about it.


I also played more Breath of the Wild yesterday. Gerudo Town sure is a place. I feel like the "vai-only" thing they've got going on could have been really good somehow, but instead I'm left thinking it all could have been done better. From Vilia and getting the Gerudo outfit to Ashai's classes... Like, it feels as though the Gerudo are halfway there being strong and well-trained and also culturally rich (the town itself is gorgeous and maybe my favorite city so far). But then there's this aspect of like "Ah yes, we have to educate girls on how to go out and talk to men."

also some voe totally called me a boot monster