Tranquility

It's May.  If you're not a teacher, that's probably not something you really care much about.  If you are a teacher then you will understand that May is not only a month, but also the feeling that you've run a marathon and you're on mile 20--the end is near, but not near enough!  You're tired, your patience is running thin, and you just generally want to get the thing over with.  I've completely reached this point (and, thanks to the magnificently snowy, cold El Niño this winter that end has been extended by a week--another 2 miles added onto the marathon) and all I look forward to at the end of the day is coming home and unwinding.  This unwinding includes playing games that would definitively fall into the "casual" and "relaxing" categories.  I have a few go-to relaxers that I turn to when I'm feeling the May crush.

1.) Stardew Valley

For some weird reason I've been spending a great deal of time down on the ol' farm.  I'm not even sure that I have any aims or goals.  At first it was simply about trying to experience the new content that was added to the game during year or so that I hadn't played.  Now, I'm just enjoying the challenge in trying to maximize my production and earn as much money as I can.  I suppose I am working toward building some of the expensive and fancy new magical buildings.

There's something soothing about the daily routine that you find yourself falling into as you play--it's repetitive, but it doesn't feel like a grind.  There aren't many games out there that can manage that exact concept without getting boring very quickly.

If you're finding that you need a little relaxation, I would recommend finding your favorite relaxing playlist and taking a virtual vacation on your happy little farm.

2.) Euro Truck Simulator 2

A glamor shot of my ETS2 truck.  Ain't it purty?

I was extremely shocked by how easily I fell into loving Euro Truck Simulator 2.  It's a game where you drive virtual big rigs around Europe (there's also some lightweight management, but it's more about the driving).  The trucks and landscapes are beautifully detailed so even though you're doing nothing more than maneuvering around the highway there are oodles to take in.  So simple, but so relaxing....definitely worth every penny.

Even though I own ETS2 and it's little brother truck driving game, American Truck Simulator, I will always opt for Europe.  There's something about the difference between the highway systems that makes Europe much more appealing to me.

3.) Viscera Cleanup Detail

Like ETS2, Viscera Cleanup Detail was a game that I never expected to enjoy.  It's a quirky game about cleaning up the grisly remains of science fiction inspired disasters.  For reasons that I can't completely understand there is something very, very satisfying about picking up body parts and mopping up puddles of goo.  Maybe it's seeing a level completely covered with gore and then seeing that same level sparklingly clean?  Maybe it's simply the satisfaction in a job well-done?  Who knows?

I find that listening to some nice, soothing music while playing is a fabulous way to relax.  Being a huge nerd, I usually like to listen to the soundtracks from other games.  I've made playlists that include music from The Witcher series, World of Warcraft, Dragon Age, and a few others.  I also enjoy downtempo or ambient when I'm feeling like something calming.

If you're feeling a little stressed or like you want a break from the intense world of competitive games, check out these three games.  When combined with your favorite low-key tunes they are the perfect formula for relaxation.

Happy Holidays!

The holiday season is here and it's time to throw the ol' Yule Log on the fire and enjoy some relaxing game time.  As for me, I'm doing a lot of reflecting about some of the games I'm currently playing and some that I've played in the recent past.  Yup, I couldn't even cobble together thoughts about one game since I've been jumping back and forth between several games.


The Winter Steam Sale
That magical time of year where oodles of great games go on sale has finally arrived...but on a much less flashy scale.  Steam sales of times past have been huge events filled with strange mini-games, flash sales, and pressure to buy games that we know we'll never play (just admit it!).  Why the changes?  There was always something exciting about Steam sales.  The addition of all the goofy little competitions and mini-games made them feel like a real event.  I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the change.  Part of me wants to celebrate the move away from using gimmicky psychological tricks (like the countdown timers) to pressure people to buy games.  On the other hand, there's this whole other part of me that liked the excitement of getting what felt like a great deal.  So far I haven't bought anything and haven't really felt pressured to buy anything.  I still explore my discovery queue every day to get my three free trading cards but this sale just feels a lot different...much more low-key.

Diablo III--Season 4
I'm not a hardcore Diablo player but I really appreciate the fact that when I do decide to play that there is always something new or interesting.  About a week ago I looked into the new (but almost over) season of Diablo III.  After months of not playing I found a reason to renew my adventures and level a new seasonal hero.  I enjoyed the fact that there were goals associated with your advancement through the season that ended with the reward of a portrait frame and pet (I'm such a nerd for pets--seriously, if there's a pet involved I will accomplish those goals).  The goals were highly obtainable, even for someone like me who started very late in the season.  I also noticed some minor changes to how some things worked--there's a whole new zone available in Adventure Mode that features a unique crafting item, Kanai's Cube.  The cube allows players to do several very useful things like extracting special powers from legendary items and allowing them to be placed on your current gear or using accumulated crafting materials to turn rare items into legendary items.  The cube is a creative way to address many of the items that become useless as players advance through adventure mode.

Kanai's Cube features several unique recipes.

It really feels like nephalem rifts have become a lot less important and bounties are more of the focus.  Kanai's Cube requires special legendary crafting materials that are found in the horadric caches that are rewarded upon completion of a string of bounties.  These crafting items are also required to craft the many legendary items available to the blacksmith.  I also noticed that the horadric caches seem to drop a lot of blacksmithing and jewelcrafting plans.  This is a nice change and allows set pieces and individual legendaries to become much more accessible.

Even though Diablo III threatens to give me a raging case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome I still find myself clicking away.  I've always been a fan of Blizzard games and I am impressed with the way that they have kept a 2-3 year old game fresh.  Season 4 ends on December 30th and Season 5, which starts on January 15th, promises a new zone and other enjoyable features.

Santa has had enough.

Viscera Cleanup Detail:  Santa's Rampage
Seasonal twists on games always make me laugh.  The space janitorial sim Viscera Cleanup Detail features a not-so-jolly holiday map that requires players to cleanup after Santa has had some sort of mental breakdown.  The resultant gore includes a number of slain elves and some unfortunate reindeer.  The level is strewn with presents, toy guns, TNT, molotov cocktails, and clear evidence that Santa had been drinking off the stresses of delivering presents to all the children on Earth.  Although the map is relatively small it's an entertaining seasonal distraction.

The Witcher 3:  Making you feel bad for horrible characters.
My personal game of the year pick would be The Witcher 3:  Wild Hunt.  I was captivated almost every minute I played and found the story options refreshing from your rote good/bad choices.  The world of The Witcher 3 is very rarely black or white and is more frequently a really dark shade of grey.  I found this most noticeable in the many characters who populate the game.  The Bloody Baron is the best example of this dynamic.  The guy is a lousy drunkard who beats his pregnant wife until she miscarries.  He leads a band of soldiers with questionable ethics who are looting the war-torn countryside bare...but he also has a giving heart and takes care of Ciri when she shows up wounded at his castle.  You really want to hate the guy but he's just so....human.  He's not perfect and that's what makes him a great character.

The most recent DLC features another character, Olgierd von Everec, who is very similar to the Baron.  Olgierd seems like an alright guy--the leader of a pack of bandits, but with some morals--very Robin Hood-esque.  It's only as you progress through the story that you realize there's much more to his story.  Eventually you learn that he's made a deal with the veritable devil (Gaunter O' Dimm, the man of glass) in an effort to restore his family's wealth and name.  The story leads you through the tragic tale of his beautiful wife who died from a broken heart.  But, like the Baron, he's just a man who made a lot of bad choices.

Here's wishing everyone out there a happy holiday season.  I hope it finds you spending time with loved ones...and maybe some light gaming :)

Space Janitoring--It's a Hard Knock Life

I've had moments in my professional life where I've just wanted to pull a Kevin Spacey ala American Beauty.  If you're unfamiliar with the classic 90's film you should definitely give it a Netflix (or one of the other streaming services).  In the movie Spacey's character is having a bit of a midlife crisis--his wife is cheating on him, his daughter hates him, and he's miserable.  Part of that misery comes from his job, which he hates, and which he gets fired/quits early in the film.  After quitting from his job he decides that rather than getting another professional job that he was happiest as a teenager working at a local fast food joint.  It's laughable seeing Spacey as this former professional working the drive-thru window.  The plot in the movie is much deeper and complex than just Spacey's midlife crisis, but doesn't everyone have thoughts about how much easier life would be if our jobs were simpler?  As a teacher I sometimes look at the janitors and think about how much stress they have in their job.  I'm sure that I'm oversimplifying their job--I very much appreciate what they do and I'm sure it's a tough job.  Thanks to the magic of video games and their seemingly random topics we can all experience the joys of janitorial duty.  Viscera Cleanup Detail gives everyone the chance to truly delve into the janitorial arts.  It turns out that being a space janitor is not as easy as it seems.

In Viscera Cleanup Detail you play as a randomly generated janitor who is tasked with the cleanup after some sort of particularly nasty sci-fi encounter.  It could be an alien attack on a science facility, an underwater research station besieged by sea monsters, or a mine overthrown by deadly enemies lurking in the jungle.  Each level has the same objective--clean up the resultant gore and rid the area of any traces that the event ever happened.  At the end of the level you receive a score based on how thoroughly you cleaned the level.  This sounds very simple but each level could take many hours to completely clean.

Your janitor character comes equipped with some basic gear--a mop to cleanup those troublesome blood pools (human or alien) and a "sniffer" that helps you detect the cleanliness of an area and find any areas that you may have missed.  The controls are very simple and act similarly to switching weapons in an FPS--you hit 2 and switch to your mop and then hit 1 to switch back to your hands.  Each level contains three machines that are vital to the task at hand--the incinerator, the "what-a-load" bin dispenser, and a bucket dispenser.  You will establish a close relationship with all three of these items.

Each scenario requires your janitor to pick up and destroy all items tied to the crisis at hand.  You will pick up shell casings, garbage, body parts, entire bodies, used buckets, and anything else that is just laying around.  All un-needed items must be tossed into the incinerator and destroyed.  The best strategy is to grab a bin from the dispenser and pile in as many items as you can.  This can be quite humorous as you load up your bin with dismembered arms, legs, and various other...chunks.  Being physics-based means that you will constantly struggle to keep your bins from overflowing and causing even more of a mess.  During the time that you are picking up items you also have to be mindful of the fluid puddles on the ground--every time you walk through a puddle of blood you will track more blood over the floor which will require more mopping.  Once you've picked up the many items scattered around the level you are ready to move onto mopping.  Mopping requires you to fetch buckets of water from the bucket dispenser.  As you mop up an area your mop becomes dirty and you must dip it into the bucket to clean it.  The water in the bucket also gradually becomes dirty and requires you dispose of it (and the bucket) in the incinerator.  Similar to the bins the buckets are also physics based...bump into a bucket filled with dirty water and you will have a new puddle to clean up.

If you pay close enough attention and read the datapads scattered around the various levels you can piece together the story of each location.  If you want to raise your score at the end of a level you can take flash-drive like ID's to the "clock" and write up a report about how each person died.  When there can be ten or more bodies on a level...well, it's a lot.  There are tons of small details that you must catch in order to raise your final score--did you repair all the bullet holes on the walls?  Did you dispose of every shell casing, piece of garbage, or chunk of flesh on the level?  Did you mop up every footprint?  Did you stack all the crates and barrels in their designated zones?  Certain levels also require you to do something a little extra--planting seeds to re-grow some very destructive plants or re-arming malfunctioning turrets.  This little chunk of variety keeps each scenario fresh even though you are basically performing the same tasks.

There's something oddly soothing about Viscera Cleanup Detail.  The hours spent virtually cleaning fly by and that final vision of a completely clean area gives you a sense of pride.  If you're looking for a strange indie game to help you relax, this is the one.  No shooting, no yelling, no stress....just hours of sweet mopping action.